"No charges for destroying CIA interrogation videos" by Pete Yost, Associated Press / November 9, 2010
WASHINGTON—A special prosecutor cleared the CIA's former top clandestine officer and others Tuesday of any charges for destroying agency videotapes showing waterboarding of terror suspects, but he continued to investigate whether the harsh questioning went beyond legal boundaries.
The decision not to prosecute anyone in the videotape destruction came five years to the day after the CIA destroyed its cache of 92 videos....
Then we can NEVER LECTURE ANYONE on human rights ever again!
And this is just torture; it doesn't address the MUCH LARGER MASS-MURDERING WAR CRIMES of INVASION and OCCUPATION!
CIA Director Leon Panetta said the agency welcomes the decision and that "we will continue, of course, to cooperate with the Department of Justice on any other aspects of the former program that it reviews."
Yeah, sure he does and will!
Related: Panetta the Prick
*****************
The department's carefully phrased announcement did not rule out the possibility of charging someone with lying to investigators looking into the tape destruction.
A lying government charging people with lying instead of the actual crime?
Sig heil, huh?
Welome to 21st-century AmeriKan justice!
Separately, the Justice Department advised the House and Senate judiciary committees that it had reviewed newly found e-mails sent by Bush administration lawyer John Yoo and stands by a conclusion that Yoo did not commit professional misconduct in authorizing CIA interrogators to use waterboarding and other harsh tactics. The department's letter to the committees, obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, stood by the earlier finding that Yoo had merely exhibited poor judgment.
Related: The End of American Justice
Tortuous Immunity
And there he is all over Oprah.
Remember Oprah going down the throat of the young lady who questioned George W. Bush's and the government's integrity regarding the accusations against Iraq?
A clip from a clip from Bill Moyers’s “Buying the War”:
Wow. She HELPED SELL the LIES and then she HELPED BUSH try and REHABILITATE HIMSELF and REWRITE HISTORY!
CIA officers began the videotaping to show that Zubaydah was brought to a secret CIA prison in Thailand already wounded from a firefight and to prove that interrogators followed broad rules Washington had laid out.
Almost as soon as taping began, top officials at agency headquarters in Langley, Va., began discussing whether to destroy the tapes, according to current and former U.S. officials and others close to the investigation.
Yeah, NO DESTRUCTION of EVIDENCE CHARGES!
Why would there be?
GOVERNMENT NEVER LOOKS TOWARDS EVIDENCE!
Geared more towards COVERING UP its ABOMINABLE CRIMES!
And there he is all over Oprah.
Remember Oprah going down the throat of the young lady who questioned George W. Bush's and the government's integrity regarding the accusations against Iraq?
A clip from a clip from Bill Moyers’s “Buying the War”:
Wow. She HELPED SELL the LIES and then she HELPED BUSH try and REHABILITATE HIMSELF and REWRITE HISTORY!
CIA officers began the videotaping to show that Zubaydah was brought to a secret CIA prison in Thailand already wounded from a firefight and to prove that interrogators followed broad rules Washington had laid out.
Almost as soon as taping began, top officials at agency headquarters in Langley, Va., began discussing whether to destroy the tapes, according to current and former U.S. officials and others close to the investigation.
Yeah, NO DESTRUCTION of EVIDENCE CHARGES!
Why would there be?
GOVERNMENT NEVER LOOKS TOWARDS EVIDENCE!
Geared more towards COVERING UP its ABOMINABLE CRIMES!
Dozens of CIA officers and contractors cycled in and out of Thailand to help with the questioning....
Now it is just questioning. What a PoS media AmeriKa has!
Despite standing orders from the Bush White House not to destroy the tapes without checking with administration officials, momentum for their destruction grew in late 2005 as the CIA Thailand station chief, Mike Winograd, prepared to retire, the current and former U.S. officials have said.
Winograd had the tapes in his safe and believed they should be destroyed, officials said.
On Nov. 4, 2005, as the CIA scrambled to quell a controversy from a Washington Post story revealing the existence of secret CIA prisons overseas....
Is that counting the floating dungeons of AmeriKa, too?
--more--"
Related: No charges to be filed in destruction of CIA tapes (By Mark Mazzetti and Charlie Savage, New York Times)
I no longer read New York Times updates on the Boston Globe web site, dear readers; however, it is there for you if you want it.
FLASHBACK:
"Leading GOP senators demanded that Holder commit to not launching criminal probes of intelligence operatives, lawyers, and high-level Bush advisers who took part in debates over warrantless wiretapping and detainee interrogations.... it remains unclear whether Obama and Holder will have the appetite to devote scarce prosecutorial resources to exploring the politically sensitive allegations. At his Senate confirmation hearing Jan. 15, Holder said that "no one is above the law," but he hastened to add that he was not interested in "criminalizing policy differences"
So DON'T GET YOUR HOPES up for any war crimes trials, folks.
Of course, we have plenty of resources for tyranny based on lies.
The STAIN REMAINS, 'bamer!
For more on the abominable atrocity of U.S. torture, go HERE and scroll down.
"CIA tape case a vignette of debate stalling Holder confirmation; GOP leaders seek pledge ex-officials will avoid charges" by Carrie Johnson and Julie Tate, Washington Post | January 26, 2009
WASHINGTON - Even as Senate Republicans seek assurances that new leaders at the Justice Department will not prosecute former government officials over national security abuses, one of the highest-profile investigations of the Bush era is grinding to a close.
A little more than a year ago, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey handpicked a prosecutor to investigate the destruction of CIA videotapes depicting harsh interrogation tactics used against two Al Qaeda suspects. The disclosure that the tapes, believed to portray the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding, were destroyed in 2005 touched off an outcry from defense lawyers and civil liberties advocates who said the government should have produced the materials in lawsuits pending at the time.
Bloggers have speculated the tape must have been of conduct much, much worse since we all know about waterboarding. The only thing I can think of is child rape -- the kind Sy Hersh reported on but of which we have never seen evidence.
Since then, the federal inquiry has proceeded mostly in the shadows. But prosecutor John H. Durham recently told a federal judge that he would wrap up interviews by the end of February - a timetable complicated by the highly sensitive subject, the reluctance of current and former agency employees to cooperate, and Durham's painstaking approach, according to court documents and three lawyers following the case.
The CIA tapes investigation illustrates a broader debate that is holding up the confirmation of Eric H. Holder Jr. to serve as President Obama's attorney general. Last week, leading GOP senators demanded that Holder commit to not launching criminal probes of intelligence operatives, lawyers, and high-level Bush advisers who took part in debates over warrantless wiretapping and detainee interrogations.
Congressional Democrats and left-leaning interest groups are calling on the Justice Department to revisit the alleged sins of the past and to provide the public with a legal reckoning. But it remains unclear whether Obama and Holder will have the appetite to devote scarce prosecutorial resources to exploring the politically sensitive allegations. At his Senate confirmation hearing Jan. 15, Holder said that "no one is above the law," but he hastened to add that he was not interested in "criminalizing policy differences."
Meanwhile, there is the Durham probe, which is among the narrower of the security dustups of the past eight years. At its simplest, the investigation has looked into whether anyone at the CIA or other high government offices intended to obstruct justice by eliminating videotapes that showed harsh questioning in 2002 of suspected Qaeda operatives. Prosecutors are exploring why the tapes were destroyed, even though they were covered by an array of lawsuits or congressional requests for information.
We KNOW WHY! They SHOWED SOMETHING HORRIBLE!!!!
People following the investigation say they doubt that criminal charges will emerge from the 13-month inquiry, in part because of the difficulty in penetrating legal defenses cited by key actors in the case. One of the lead FBI agents, counterterrorism expert Stephanie Douglas, was transferred to a new investigation last fall, according to lawyers involved in the probe.
Tom Carson, a spokesman for Durham, and CIA spokesman George Little declined comment.
--more--"
Also see:
Memory Hole: Iraq's Jails
Memory Hole: Torture Rules
Memory Hole: Camp Nama and Task Force 6-26
Occupation Iraq: New Torture Techniques Revealed
Occupation Iraq: Winter Soldiers Speak
Memory Hole: What Four Years of Torture Will Do to an Innocent Man
Hell-oween: Afghanistan Torture File/The First Abu Ghraib
Hell-oween: Afghanistan Torture File/Perversion
Hell-oween: Afghanistan Torture File/Dilawar and Habibullah
Hell-oween: Afghanistan Torture File/Chamber of Horrors
Hell-oween: Afghanistan Torture File/American Amnesty
Hell-oween: Afghanistan Torture File/Bagram
Afghanistan Torture Chamber
Inside Bagram Prison
The Globe's Weekend Movie
I'm going to quit going to the movies.
