[Peace-discuss] Pelosi the Torture Witch

[E. Wayne Johnson]

The Torture Bitch
Posted by Justin Raimondo on May 08, 2009
Article URL: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/the_terror_bitch/

It seems the national commentariat is obsessed with the subject of 
torture, and there is talk of a “truth commission” to investigate and 
hold the Bushies accountable, up to and including The Decider himself. 
This is nothing but a lot of posturing on the part of liberals who know 
nothing will come of it: it was clear from the beginning that holding 
anyone accountable, never mind prosecutions, would never happen, and 
that the revelations of “enhanced interrogation techniques” are merely 
the occasion for the release of large quantities of hot air. That’s 
because both parties knew about the “EIT”s (that’s government 
acronym-ese for enhanced interrogation techniques, i.e. waterboarding, 
beatings, sexual humiliation, etc. ad nauseum.) As I wrote in my “Behind 
the Headlines” column on April 20:

“The whole thing was hidden from the public–but not from congressional 
leaders, who were informed of the harsh interrogation methods and never 
objected or revealed what they knew.

“This last is key to understanding one good reason why no one is being 
prosecuted, and why the top Obamaites (although not their rank-and-file 
followers) are generously declaring it’s time to “move on.” Going after 
the torturers, we’re told, would be too divisive. Well, yes, it would 
divide the Democratic Party, first and foremost, as the complicity of 
Pelosi & Co. is made all too clear and it turns out that torture is a 
bipartisan sport.”

Just about two weeks later, in Friday’s [May 8] edition of the Wall 
Street Journal, we read:
“Congressional leaders were briefed in detail about techniques used in 
the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation program, according to a 
new intelligence document.

The document appears to conflict with recent statements from House 
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was then the top Democrat on the House 
intelligence committee. Ms. Pelosi has said she hadn’t been told that 
the CIA was using the technique known as waterboarding, or simulated 
drowning. According to the document, Ms. Pelosi was one of the first 
lawmakers briefed on the interrogations in 2002….

“The document lists 40 briefings provided to lawmakers on intelligence, 
judiciary and other panels, the first of which was provided to 
then-House intelligence committee chairman Porter Goss, a Florida 
Republican, and Ms. Pelosi of California on Sept. 4, 2002. That briefing 
is described as covering ‘enhanced interrogation techniques.’ It 
included the use of the techniques on detainee Abu Zubaydah, background 
on legal authority, and “a description of the particular [enhanced 
interrogation techniques] that had been employed.’

“A recently declassified Justice Department memo on the CIA program 
dated May 30, 2005, states the CIA used waterboarding to interrogate Mr. 
Zubaydah ‘at least 83 times during August 2002.’”

What did Pelosi know and when did she know it suddenly becomes an 
important issue: will she be a victim of the Democratic-run “truth 
commission”? Like the French Revolution, will the Obama-ites wind up 
turning on their own leaders (except, of course, for the Dear Leader)?

It’s not like suspicions of Democratic complicity in use of torture are 
anything new. In a televised interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, 
broadcast earlier this year, Pelosi denied having been briefed on EITs 
employed against “enemy combatants” by US government personnel:

“No. No,—the fact is, they did not brief…well, first of all, we’re not 
allowed to talk about what happens there but I can say they did not 
brief us with these enhanced interrogations that were taking place. They 
did not brief us. They were talking about an array of interrogations 
that they might have at their disposal.

MADDOW: Techniques in the abstract, as if they were not being used?

PELOSI: We were never told they were being used.

MADDOW: You were told they weren’t being used?

PELOSI: Well, they just talked about them, but—the inference to be drawn 
from what they told us was that these are things that we think could be 
legal. … But I can say flat out, they never told us that these 
enhancement interrogations were being used.”

Caught in a web of lies, Pelosi is going to make quite a spectacle of 
herself trying to claw her way out of it. She’ll probably do no better 
than Calamity Jane Harman, whose recent outing as a would-be obstructor 
of justice in the AIPAC espionage case has the bigmouthed Democratic 
hawk spluttering with rage and phony indignation. Pelosi will no doubt 
be less theatrical, certainly less articulate—and it looks like Lanny 
Davis has another client. While Harman and her supporers are yelping 
that the charges against her are the concoction of Republicans such as 
Porter Goss, the former CIA director and very partisan GOP congressman, 
it was Leon Panetta’s CIA that released the documents fingering Pelosi, 
albeit at the request of congressional Republicans.

Suddenly, the idea of prosecuting high government officials for war 
crimes under the statutes prohibiting torture is a lot more 
appealing–providing, of course, that we can get all those who were in 
the loop and said nothing. The trial of Nancy Pelosi for war crimes–now 
that’s a prime candidate for Court TV.
Article URL: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/the_terror_bitch/