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Robert Scheer: Pelosi the Enabler
Nancy Pelosi is no Dick Cheney, nor a George W. Bush. The House speaker was neither the author of a systematic policy of torture nor has she been, like Cheney and most top congressional Republicans, an enduring apologist for its practice. It is a nonsensical distraction to place her failure to speak out courageously as a critic of the Bush policies on the same level as those who engineered one of the most shameful debacles in U.S. history.
But what she, and anyone else who went along with this evil as lackadaisically as she now claims, should be confronted with are the serious implications of their passive acquiescence. Why did she not speak up, or if it were a matter of a lack of reliable information, demand an accounting from the executive branch, as befits a leader of the loyal opposition in Congress?
If the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, and later House Democratic leader, lacked the authority to publicly question a policy of torture, then how can we condemn, indeed imprison, ordinary soldiers who thought it their duty to follow orders?
Even though Abu Zubaydah had been waterboarded 83 times before the September 2002 briefing of Pelosi, the San Francisco Democrat now claims she was told only that the practice might be used and that it had been approved by President George W. Bush’s Justice Department as legal. Wasn’t that approval in itself sufficiently alarming to justify a strong and public dissent?
Certainly that would have been the appropriate response when Pelosi aide Michael Sheehy, along with Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., were informed by the CIA in no uncertain terms five months later that Zubaydah had been subjected to specific “enhanced” methods, including waterboarding.
Pelosi admits to possessing that information, but according to one of her aides quoted in Politico, after Harman’s letter questioning the practice received “no response” from the CIA, “there was nothing more that could be done.”
Why not? Does the CIA or the White House that directs its activities stand above the law without any congressional restraint, as mandated by the Constitution that Pelosi has sworn to uphold?
Should the members of the 9/11 Presidential Commission not have been informed that two of the “key witnesses” upon whom their report was based had provided the information critical to the report’s conclusions only after being waterboarded a total of 266 times? On page 146 of that report, there appears a boxed disclaimer that even the commissioners, possessed of high security clearances, were not allowed to meet, let alone cross-examine, the witnesses or even talk with those who did the interrogations.
As the presidential commissioners conceded in their report, “We submitted questions for use in the interrogations, but had no control over whether, when or how questions of particular interest would be asked. Nor were we allowed to talk to the interrogators so that we could better judge the credibility of the detainees and clarify ambiguities in the reporting.”
In short, the basic narrative of the origins and conduct of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that so fundamentally perverted U.S. politics relied on cherry-picked information that the White House and its operative in the field chose to release to the commission. As a result, we the public still know nothing of certainty about the financing of the terrorist organization emanating from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates or the logistical support supplied to the Taliban and al-Qaeda by agencies of the government of Pakistan.
What the public was offered was not an unvarnished look at the available evidence concerning the attack, but rather a fear campaign justifying an undifferentiated and illogically constructed international war on terrorism. As Steve Elmendorf, chief of staff to then-House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., put it, “You have to remember, in the 2002 period, the whole atmospherics, it was all about scaring people every day.”
That fear-mongering drove a majority of Democrats to support Bush in his invasion of Iraq, the one Arab nation where al-Qaeda had been most brutally oppressed by its sworn enemy, Saddam Hussein, who had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. The “key witnesses” affirmed that reality even after being subjected to torture, which would have proven deeply embarrassing to the Bush administration were it revealed in open court proceedings.
By acquiescing to the cover-up of unpleasant truths in the treatment of prisoners, Pelosi contributed to the betrayal of the ideal of public accountability that is the bedrock of our system of governance, which Congress is charged with protecting.
— TruthDig.com editor in chief Robert Scheer‘s new book is The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America. Click here for more information. He can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
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» on 05.16.09 @ 03:45 AM
ROBERT - I WATCHED HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI’S PRESS CONFERENCE AND I ALSO BELIEVE SHE WAS MISLED NOT LONLY BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION BUT AS WELL(!) BY THE U. S. [ONCE VAUNTED] INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY. [WHAT IS MOST NEEDED IS A DECLASSIFICATION OF THE ‘MINORITY REPORT FOOTNOTES’ ON THE INTELL STUFF DURING GEORGE TENENT’S TENURE AS DCI]—- DCI LEON PANETTA’S PUBLICLY RELEASED MEMO FULLY COLLABORATES NANCY’S STORY IMO. BUT TO MAKE THIS ‘DOUBLE WHAMMY A TRUE WHOPPER - OF HISTORIC MALFEASANCE [POTENTIAL] BETWEEN TWO HISTORIC ALLIES’ = THE DAILY TELEGRAPH IN LONDON IS NJOW REPORTING SIMILAR SHENANIGANS DURING THE TONY BLAIR ADMINISTRATION, WHERE G-2 INPUTS WERE ‘SEXED UP’ TO JUSTIFY USE OF FORCE BY BOTH COUNTRIES, ET AL. IT IS NOT PRETTY AND IS GETTING UGLIER WITH EACH PASSING DAY OF RELEASES OF FORMERLY CLASSIFIED REVELATIONS TO PUBLICS IN BOTH COUNTRIES. IN THE MEANTIME: 4,200+ US COMBAT TROOPS’ LIVES LOST; COUNT-LESS INTERNATIONAL LIVES NO LONGER WITH US; AND OUR COMBAT TROOPS COME HOME TO A V-A STILL PRESCRIBING PAIN KILLERS WITH FATAL SIDE-EFFECTS FOR PTSD DIAGNOSES [SEE HARRY SHEARER’S INPUT ON ARIANNA HUFFINGTON’S BLOG].
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» on 05.16.09 @ 10:21 AM
Thank God the information obtained prevented the plotted attacks against Los Angeles and another in NYC. These people are terrorists we are dealing with. They hate us and want us dead. I, for one, am happy and grateful that we have been safe and protected since tha 9/11 attacks. I pray that the current administration doesn’t weaken us to the point that we are all at risk again.
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» on 05.16.09 @ 11:16 AM
The United States is Evil huh and guilty of “torture”? So that equates to something like say, slowly sawing off a person’s head with a dull knife while screaming “Allah is Great”? I don’t think so. Pelosi should be proud for going along with dripping water on someones face to show just how humane we really are. Instead, her character drifts with the political winds and she uses excuses because she really doesn’t know what she stands for. Whatever is popular I guess..thank God for men in the CIA who have kept us safe and act for no glory of their own. And there are those who want to treat them like criminals for this, it is disgusting.
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» on 05.16.09 @ 01:08 PM
The larger, ethical question raised by DCI Leon Panetta memo(s) has been that such tactics - however ‘[arguably o legally] sanctioned - have no place in our value system and the ideals for which this Nation stands now nor has stood in the past. Of historic interest, during the last week across entire top of the Salt Lake City (UT) Tribune ‘op-ed’ page is a reasoned and heart-felt plea from a now practicing m Mormon—- a retired US Army commissioned officer and attorney, who taught interrogation techniques at the 6th US Army Intelligence School. This officer names names and condemns fellow Mormon attorneys who had (a) sanctioned the highly controversial interrogation ‘water-boarding’ [by CIA contractor personnel] as well as (b) the legal justi-fication for using such actions. What makes this article all the more remarkable is that although not an official “Article of Faith” of the LDS Church, it is a practicing custom to NEVER condemn nor accuse in any written or spoken public forum any action(s) by a fellow Mormon. WHERE I REMAIN CONFUSED on the statements of DCI Panetta is whether one statement earlier released [before Mrs. Pelosi’s Press Conference] was intended for clarifying where this Administration’s policy stands; then whether a subsequent Panetta memo(?) post Pelosi press conference was intended for “internal consumption” within the US Intelligence Community [to bolster sagging internal morale]. Former Vice President Cheney is by attempting to make the best possible Bush Administration case that “any means used were justified by the results”! He is being hampered in this objective by the court’s refusal to allow a FOIA declassification process to begin to bolster that Cheney viewpoint it seems to me. If one takes the position that “lack of subsequent 9/11 attacks on this country” are proof positive that the water-boarding interrogation techniques [thru a seeming ‘Chinese veil’] by CIA contractors, even under the Rules of War there is allowance for POWs/MIAs [since vicious North Korean interrogation techniques at lest as brutal and inhumane] that military professionals and USG contractors CAN REFUSE ‘an illegal order” if it involved harm or potential death to non-combatants or civilians. On that issue, the attorneys—- as the aforementioned US Army intelligence officer convincing writes [in the Salt Lake City Tribune] a few days ago—- of the Mormon faith are in for a rough road in keeping their Temple Recommends active or even the dire prospect of public humiliation with a closed church court on possible excommunication.
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» on 05.16.09 @ 01:14 PM
Though I don’t necessarilly agree that it was “torture,” I do believe Robert makes a good point about Pelosi being accountable. The problem is that the congressional democrats treat this as a purely partisan issue rather than having any sort of interest in justice. With the congressional democrats (I’m not talking about the average american who is registered a democrat, but rather those in elective office) making this all about politics. With Pelosi it wouldn’t surprise me if back in 2002/2003 Nancy Pelosi secrectly cheered on the interrogation methods as she just seems so political in her actions that she would strongly be for something when it was convenient and then when it ceased to be convenient to then vilify it.
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» on 05.17.09 @ 09:12 AM
FOR ISSUE RESOLUTION - I look to DCI LEON PANETTA.
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