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NSN Daily Update 4/21/2009
democracyarsenal.org —
See today's complete Daily Update here. What We’re Reading Pressure grows on President Obama to hold an investigation into the torture memos (even from some former Bush administration officials) and release further memos. An army takeover quells violence in Ciudad Juarez, formerly the epicenter of Mexico’s drug violence, but also prompting questions over civil liberties. South Africa goes to the polls tomorrow in what ...
The Rule of Law
Matthew Yglesias —
... Phil Zelikow, formerly a top aide to Condoleezza Rice at the State Department and a torture opponent has an excellent post on the nonsensical legal position the Obama administration seems to have ...
War and Piece — Philip Zelikow at Foreign Policy : The OLC memos: Thoughts from a dissenter: ... I believed that the OLC opinions (especially the May 30 one) presented the U.S. government with a distorted rendering of relevant U.S. law. At the time, in 2005, I circulated an opposing view of the legal reasoning. My bureaucratic position, as counselor to the secretary of state, didn't entitle me to offer a legal opinion. But I felt obliged to put an alternative view in front of my colleagues at other agencies, warning them that other lawyers (and judges) might find the OLC views unsustainable. ...
Disappearing the Historic Record
Talking Points Memo —
... , I see that former Bush State Department official (and 9/11 Commission executive director) Philip Zelikow now says that not only did the Bush torture architects solicit terrible legal advice from the likes of Bybee, Yoo and Bradbury -- but they actively worked to erase any evidence that dissenting legal advice was given: ...
They Physically Destroyed The Dissent
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan —
... Before you buy the Bushies' latest self-defence - they had no idea what they were authorizing and had no knowledge of the techniques' history or provenance and were acting totally in good faith - you might want to read another part of former Bushie Philip Zelikow's post: ...
Preserving the Illusion of Good Faith
The Anonymous Liberal —
Former State Department Legal Advisor Philip Zelikow has written an interesting post about the OLC torture memos that were released last week. Zelikow writes that when he first read the memos in 2005, he was shocked by their "grave weakenesses." Indeed, he was so shocked that he actually went to the trouble of drafting a counter-memo: ...
State Dept Lawyer: White House Tried To Destroy My Alternative Memo On Torture
TPMMuckraker —
... over at TPM, there was some potentially big news in a blog post that was written this morning over at Foreign Policy by Philip Zelikow, a top State Department lawyer under Condoleezza Rice. ...
Casual Observation
Booman Tribune —
... Tue Apr 21st, 2009 at 02:06:53 PM EST In any kind of sane world, Dick Cheney wouldn't be spouting off, he'd be obtaining legal counsel . In fact, I wish Joe Biden would go off message and say as much. Display: ...
Waterboarding Can Be A Distraction
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan —
... After covering this nightmare for many years, I can only urge you to read Philip Zelikow's take. He saw what was going on from the inside and this point is essential: ...
What Actual Tyranny Is
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan —
... was writing a book called "Liberal Fascism." Even now, he is conducting interesting discussions on whether taxation in a representative democracy could be described as "tyranny." After a single stimulus package and three months of Obama, Fox News is predicting fascism. I have long been at a loss to explain this. Some kind of psychological denial mechanism? Rank projection? Displaced panic? Partisanship so deep it erodes any moral faculties or critical reasoning? To Zelikow again: ...
Diplomat Claims Bush White House Destroyed His Memo Opposing Torture (VIDEO)
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com —
... Rice and was the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, has been forthright in his opposition to the harsh interrogation techniques used under the Bush administration.
Zelikow disagreed with the legal reasoning employed by Bush's Office of Legal Counsel to justify the use of harsh interrogation techniques such as waterboarding. And he claims that copies of memo he circulated to detail his opposing views were destroyed by the White House.
Writing in Foreign Policy's Shadow Government blog, Zelikow details:
"At the time, in 2005, I circulated ...
Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out
Brilliant at Breakfast —
Every day it is becoming more difficult for the Obama Administration to continue to embrace the appalling Peggy Noonan Doctrine of "just keep walking" where the Bush Administration's embrace of torture as a war tactic is concerned. Now that the OLC memos have been released, former State Department counselor Philip Zelikow has decided to speak up in Foreign Policy magazine: ...
ThinkFast: April 22, 2009
Think Progress —
... In 2005, former State Department counselor Phillip Zelikow wrote a legal memo holding an "opposing view" from the infamous OLC torture memos. But "[t]he White House attempted to collect and destroy all copies of my memo. I expect that one or two are still at least in the State Department's archives," he writes. Zelikow discussed the matter on the ...
Zelikow speaks
Political Animal —
ZELIKOW SPEAKS.... Philip Zelikow, a top State Department lawyer under Condoleezza Rice and the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, had a rather provocative item for Foreign Policy yesterday, explaining that he saw the OLC's arguments in 2005 justifying abusive interrogation techniques, and provided officials with an "opposing" view of the law. Zelikow said he "felt obliged to put an alternative view in front of my colleagues at other agencies, warning them that other lawyers (and judges) might find the OLC views unsustainable." His perspective, we now know, was ...
The Alternate Torture Memo
Daily Kos —
... is moral is another question. The question before them was, is it lawful to do this? And the Justice Department has the job of giving authoritative guidance for the executive branch on how the U.S. law should be interpreted in the conduct of our actions. (emphasis mine) (Full transcript of this video snippet is below the fold. The full video is available here, and the full transcript here.) Zelikow also wrote about his dissent yesterday at Foreign Policy's Web site. Stated in a shorthand way, mainly for the ...
Condi Aide: Bushies Told Me Anti-Torture Memo Was "Inconvenient"
TPMMuckraker —
... , Philip Zelikow, a former top lawyer to Condi Rice at the State Department, yesterday wrote that the White House tried to destroy all copies of a memo he authored, which took issue with the legal opinions laid out in the infamous OLC torture memos. ...
Why Didn't Zelikow Resign When Bush Admin 'Attempted to Destroy All Copies' of His Opinion on Torture?
The BRAD BLOG —
... The former State Department adviser to Condoleezza Rice and executive director of the 9/11 Commission, Phllip Zelikow, disclosed at Foreign Policy's Shadow Government yesterday that he offered a dissenting view to the torture memos and policies of the Bush Administration. (Ernie Canning ...
Zelikow’s Destroyed Memos Destroy “Good Faith” Torture Defense; Implies Bush Administration Cover-Up
Firedoglake —
... used in the 9/11 Report, the former Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission was on Rachel Maddow, elaborating on his Foreign Policy article where he revealed how the Bush Administration destroyed his objections to the May 2005 Bradbury Memos. ...
Former Bush Official Zelikow Decries Bush Interrogation Techniques
Political Punch —
... . Zelikow, former counselor at the State Department under Secretary Condoleezza Rice, recently wrote a piece for Foreign Policy in which he discussed the memo he wrote in May 2005 after hearing of the memos coming from the Justice Department coming up with legal justifications for harsh interrogation techniques for detainees, the so-called Office of Legal Counsel "torture memos." "I felt obliged to put an alternative view in front of my colleagues at other agencies, warning them that other lawyers (and judges) might find the OLC views unsustainable," Zelikow writes. "My ...
What We Know So Far: A Torture Timeline (Updated)
Daily Kos —
... June 2005 Philip Zelikow, legal adviser to now-SoS Rice, writes a memo in which he takes issue with each of the justifications offered by the Bradbury memos. The Bush White House attempted to ...
Congress Seeking Zelikow's "Alternative" Torture Memo
TPMMuckraker —
... , Philip Zelikow, who was a top State Department lawyer under Condoleezza Rice, last month revealed the existence of the memo -- as well as the fact that the Bushies not only didn't act on it, but even "attempted to collect and destroy all copies" of it. ...
Soufan, Zelikow to testify about torture.
Think Progress —
... before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee next Tuesday, May 13. Zelikow has become an outspoken critic of the Bush administration’s torture program. FBI interrogator Ali Soufan, ...
Advancing the Story of the Anti-Torture Torture Memo
MoJo Blog Posts: mojo —
... , who was counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during the Bush administration, revealed on Foreign Policy's "Shadow Government" blog that he wrote a memo in 2005 disputing the conclusions of Bush Justice Department lawyers that torture was legal. The existence of such a memo was a surprise. But Zelikow also disclosed that the "White House attempted to collect and destroy all copies of my memo." ...
Zelikow: I Think Cheney Tried To Destroy My Torture Memo
TPMMuckraker —
... , Philip Zelikow, a top lawyer for Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, wrote that the Bush White House "attempted to collect and destroy all copies" of the memo. But he hadn't said who at the White House he suspected of being behind that effort. ...
Senate panel to hold torture hearings
News —
... criticizing the techniques authorized in the memos and claiming that Abu Zubaydah, whom Soufan himself interrogated, had co-operated before waterboarding was used. Zelikow criticized the memos in a recent Foreign Policy piece: The underlying absurdity of the administration's position can be summarized this way. Once you get to a substantive compliance analysis for "cruel, inhuman, and degrading" you get the position that the substantive standard is the same as it is in analogous U.S. constitutional law. So the OLC must argue, in effect, that the methods and the conditions of ...
The Case of the Disappeared Memo
Comments from Left Field —
... Zelikow, who ran the 9/11 Commission before joining the State Department, wrote in his original blog post that he believed the administration had failed to erase the evidence of his dissent: “I expect that one or two [copies of the memo] are still at least in the State Department’s archives.” And four top congressional Democrats on Monday wrote Secretary of State Hillary Clinton [ ...
OLC Torture Memo Hearing: Sen. Lindsey Graham Does His Best Cheney Impression
BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash —
... , in Nixon's case the statement was said "off the cuff in a high pressure interview, not in an OLC memo." Philip Zelikow testified as the executive director of the 9/11 Commission as well as a former counsel to the secretary of state. Zelikow recently wrote in Foreign Policy magazine that the White House attempted to collect and destroy all copies of the 2005 memos he wrote as counselor to the secretary of state opposing the torture memos from the OLC. When questioned about the incident today, Zelikow said OLC lawyers could have responded by explaining to him why his legal ...
Karen Hughes ‘worried’ that torture would harm U.S. image, was ‘very vocal’ in internal debate.
Think Progress —
... Last month, Phillip Zelikow disclosed that while serving as a top-aide to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2005, he had written and circulated a memo expressing grave concerns about the Bush administration’s torture regime. Another memo Zelikow co-authored at around the same time even offered a ...
