Here’s the Wall Street Journal:

President Obama’s endorsements of Bush-Cheney antiterror policies are by now routine: for example, opposing the release of prisoner abuse photographs and support for indefinite detention for some detainees, and that’s just this week. More remarkable is White House creativity in portraying these U-turns as epic change. Witness yesterday’s announcement endorsing military commissions.

White House officials insist that their tribunals will be kinder and gentler, stressing additional due-process safeguards for terrorists on trial for war crimes. But the debate that has convulsed the political system since 9/11 isn’t about procedural nuances. It has been over core principles, with Democrats decrying a “shadow justice system” and claiming that “Our Constitution and our Uniform Code of Military Justice provide a framework for dealing with the terrorists.”

The latter quote is from a speech by Senator Obama in 2007 denouncing “a legal framework that does not work.” He also referred to the civilian criminal justice system and courts martial that Democrats then claimed, and many still claim, are the right venues for antiterror prosecutions. After the Supreme Court’s Boumediene decision gave terrorists habeas rights, Mr. Obama again laid into the Bush Administration’s “legal black hole” and “dangerously flawed legal approach,” which “undermines the very values we are fighting to defend.”

At least some people in the White House must now be embarrassed by their boss’s switcheroo, though you can’t tell from Friday’s declaration. Part of the tribunal face-lift is that “the accused will have greater latitude in selecting their counsel.” Say what? Enemy combatants already have better access to attorneys — white shoe and pro bono, no less — than nearly every criminal defendant in America. Perhaps this means Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 90 Yemenis and the rest will now be able to choose lawyers from both Shearman & Sterling and Covington & Burling, instead of one or the other.

Another red herring is supposedly tightening the admissibility of hearsay evidence. Tribunal judges already have discretion to limit such evidence, and the current rules are nearly indistinguishable from those of the International Criminal Court. The sensible exceptions involve evidence obtained under combat conditions or from foreign intelligence services, which are left untouched by Mr. Obama’s nips and tucks.

In any event, Mr. Obama deserves credit for accepting that the civilian courts are largely unsuited for the realities of the war on terror. He has now decided to preserve a tribunal process that will be identical in every material way to the one favored by Dick Cheney — and which, contrary to the narrative that Democrats promulgated for years, will be the fairest and most open war-crimes trials in U.S. history. Meanwhile, friends should keep certain newspaper editors away from sharp objects. Their champion has repudiated them once again.

The water gets deeper for Nancy Pelosi. Boy, if you’re a Democratic politician you know you are in trouble when even liberal outlets like the St. Petersburg Time’s Politifact or Jon Stewart are calling you a liar.

For all his faults Barack Obama isn’t a dummy, and can certainly tell when the tide is turning. Today, the O-Team announced that they would not release photographs of military abuse of detainees from Afghanistan and Iraq on the basis that it would “not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by small number of individuals.” Yowza. That’s been the Bush defense for years, and much to the media and Left wing kookhouse’s chagrin, it defies the (false) notion that the Bush teams legalese created an environment of abuse.

“In fact,’ he [Obama] said, “the most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger.”

And, he added, distribution of the photos could also have a “chilling effect on future investigations of detainee abuse.”

Now, this is all true, and well and good, but, let’s not kid ourselves. Obama is reversing course because he knows he’s in a politically unpopular fight with the mass public, and one that if followed through will indeed bring down key Democrats including Nancy Pelosi and Jay Rockefeller, both whom were intelligence committee leaders who quietly endorsed the very CIA tactics they later attacked Bush for permitting.

Want more proof the Democrats are in a losing fight: they’ve resorted to the “CIA is out to get us” defense. Well, if the CIA wasn’t before they will be now that they see the Democrats as using them as scapegoats.

Are these Democratic Capital Hill folks fools, or do they just think we, the American public, are? Despite her previous denials declassified records show that Nancy Pelosi was briefed 40 times on enhanced interrogation techniques. Meanwhile Sen. Jay Rockefeller has now contradicted his own denial in his own report.

Ms. Pelosi’s denials are also difficult to square with a chronology of 40 CIA briefings to Congressional Members compiled by the CIA and released this week by Director Leon Panetta. For the September 4, 2002 meeting, the CIA’s summary of the discussion reads: “Briefing on EITs including use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah, background on authorities, and a description of the particular EITs that had been employed.” We emphasize the verb tense to underscore the contradiction with Ms. Pelosi’s categorical denials of last month.

Ms. Pelosi was replaced by Jane Harman as the Committee’s ranking member, but the bipartisan briefings continued. On February 4, 2003, Senators Pat Roberts and Jay Rockefeller of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence were given a briefing in which “EITs [were] ‘described in considerable detail,’ including ‘how the water board was used.’ The process by which the techniques were approved by DoJ was also raised.” The document also adds that Mr. Rockefeller, the Committee’s ranking Democrat, was later given an “individual briefing.”

Nor was that the only time Mr. Rockefeller, who chaired the Committee from 2007 to 2009, heard from the CIA. The West Virginian was briefed at least 12 times more about interrogation techniques, legal authorities and other aspects of the program. The last, in June 2008, was offered to 10 members of the Senate Intelligence Committee and covered “discussion of EITs and the OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] opinions. Specific mentions of waterboarding numerous time.”

Yet in October 2008, following a Washington Post report on the existence of the OLC memos, Mr. Rockefeller disclaimed any knowledge of the opinions. “If White House documents exist that set the policy for the use of coercive techniques such as waterboarding, those documents have been kept from the committee,” said Mr. Rockefeller. “That is unacceptable, and represents the latest example of the Bush Administration withholding critical information from Congress and the American people in an attempt to limit our oversight of sensitive intelligence collection activities.”

Amusingly, or almost, Senator Rockefeller’s denial is flatly contradicted by his own report on the subject released last month, which notes that “On May 19, 2008, the Department of Justice and the Central Intelligence Agency provided the Committee with access to all opinions and a number of other documents prepared by the Office of Legal Counsel . . . concerning the legality of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program. Five of these documents provided addressed the use of waterboarding.”

So much for the canard that the Bush Administration didn’t keep Congress informed. But Congressional Democrats are being equally disingenuous when they pretend they could do nothing about what they were hearing from the CIA. Members could, and sometimes did, object to proposed CIA actions and could stop them in their tracks.

More importantly, Congress had the power of the purse. Pete Hoekstra, the House Committee’s current ranking member, tells us there was “pretty bipartisan support for the authorization bills and the funding bills,” at least until the issue blew wide in the pages of the press. Latter-day opponents of the interrogation techniques, he adds, “never used a tool that was available to them if they wanted to stop them.”

We suspect a last line of Democratic defense will be that the Members privately objected to the practices and made their concerns known to the CIA. That seems to be the case with Ms. Harman, who wrote the CIA just days after she was first briefed saying the interrogation practices raised “profound policy questions” and that she was “concerned about whether these have been as rigorously examined as the legal questions.” Ironically, Ms. Harman now finds herself a target on the left for the unrelated AIPAC non-scandal.

Here’s a curious summary from former Lt. Col. Oliver North:

On Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder revealed to a Senate Appropriations subcommittee that some of the detainees “are going to be released,” others will “be tried,” and “some will be detained on a fairly extended basis,” without disclosing where or how any of that will happen. That got the attention of Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., one of Guantanamo’s harshest critics. She admonished Holder that she “would be very concerned” if she and other lawmakers were not consulted before detainees were brought to the U.S.

In other words, beyond the executive promise to close Guantanamo by such and such a date, to this day, in deeds, not one thing regarding detainees has changed between the Bush and Obama administrations. So once again we see that it’s much more difficult to be president and actually keep Americans safe than it is to run for president and just talk about lofty pipedreams.

Meanwhile the sheer hypocrisy of the Democratic Party is so thick one would need a chainsaw to cut it: to wit, CIA personnel are leaking to the press — and how’s that for irony, a taste of the Dems’ own medicine –  that one of the Bush-era’s most vocal critics on Guantanamo and “enhanced interrogation,” Nancy Pelosi, is lying that she was in the dark.

• CIA Says Pelosi Was Briefed on Use of ‘Enhanced Interrogations’
• Top Pelosi Aide Learned Of Waterboarding in 2003

The hypocrisy and double standard doesn’t end with the liberal politicians, either. Weekly Standard writer John McCormack notes that just a few weeks ago liberal advocates like “John Podesta, the head of the Center for American Progress and Obama’s chief transition adviser, called for the impeachment of federal judge Jay Bybee, who signed off on the [interrogation] memos while at the Justice Department.” If Bybee should be impeached, why not Pelosi?

So here’s the question: Do people who believe that harsh interrogations were gravely immoral and violated the law think that Nancy Pelosi retains the moral authority to serve as speaker of the House? Based on the 2007 Washington Post story, Porter Goss‘s testimony, and the latest CIA memo–which reports Pelosi was given a “Briefing on [Enhanced Interrogation Techniques] EITs including use of EITs on Abu Zubaydah, background on authorities, and a description of particular EITs that had been employed”–don’t opponents of ‘EITs’ think it’s time for Pelosi to go?

The excuses trotted out in her defense so far are pretty pathetic. See this anonymously authored Center for American Progress post as a good example. One talking point–that Pelosi wasn’t specifically informed about waterboarding–is particularly laughable. As Goldfarb notes below, Rep. Hoekstra says there are documents showing otherwise, and Allahpundit points out that Pelosi was briefed just a month after Zubaydah was waterboarded repeatedly: “Consider the context of when the briefing was held — one week before 9/11/02, when fears of an anniversary attack were sky high — and ask yourself why the CIA wouldn’t have told Pelosi they had waterboarded Zubaydah.” It certainly looks like Pelosi knew about waterboarding, and if she didn’t she was certainly briefed about other interrogation techniques. Do her apologists think that waterboarding is the only technique that qualifies as torture?

Apparently so. Democrat’s defenders are making a pathetic attempt to frame the argument, add Jules Crittenden: Say the Dems: “It’s “Republican crime,” but it’s “Democratic stupidity.”” Ah. Whatever it takes them to sleep at night, I guess.

More importantly, once more, how weak we must look in the eyes of our enemies. We destroy one another over “walling” with rubber walls, and “simulated” drowning, in a detainee system providing better care then our Federal penitentiary system. The Jihadists, on the other hand, take a sharp sword to our necks, saw back and forth with horrible gurgling terror, and post the video on the Internet.

Here’s another great letter to the Wall Street Journal. It’s an important point that often gets forgotten:

Regarding Bill McGurn’s “Torture and the ‘Truth Commission’ ” and Bret Stephens’s “The Politics of Liberal Amnesia” (both April 28): Let’s take a step back from the sensationalism of the “torture” headlines. Rules of engagement, most often referenced in the Geneva Convention, exist to separate depravity from “civilized” warfare. Extending those rules and protections to those who consistently ignore them or openly flout them (such as terrorists who target civilians or behead journalists on camera) is calculated to show its proponents as principled as well as having high-minded values (such as Sen. John McCain, who experienced torture after being captured as a uniformed member of a state armed force).

Think about this for a moment. If we extend these protections to those who openly and brazenly violate them, are we assuring ourselves that the treatment we desire for our captured military will violate the rules?

If we don’t have consequences for violating these rules, who would adhere to them? We absolutely need to have principles, and to respect the Geneva rules for those who also adhere to them. However, I draw the line at those that descend to barbarism and depravity. The targeting of civilians and those with absolutely no connection to an armed force has to be condemned in no uncertain terms, and a failure to do so only encourages more of this activity.

President Obama believes he is adhering to principle when he releases interrogation memos and suggests prosecution of the former administration. Let’s hope he doesn’t succeed in placing future members of our military in more danger. Terrorists who murder wantonly will not care for principle, and it is the height of foolishness to believe that nice words will deter them from their murderous ways.

John Cox
Chicago

Gosh, I guess even Comedy Central realized that calling President Truman a “war criminal” is beyond the pale. Stewart issued an apology, kind of. I’ll agree with Michael Goldfarb — his accusation against Truman wasn’t exactly spontaneous. However, Stewart was accurate that day in that emotional people say stupid things because their ego won’t let them concede a point made by an opponent.

To his credit, Jon Stewart acknowledges how “stupid” and “dumb” it was to accuse Harry Truman of war crimes his decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan. As we noted yesterday, the charge came in the middle of an interview with Cliff May, head of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, who appeared on the show Wednesday night. Contrary to Stewart’s apology, the comment didn’t just slip out. He seemed to think long and hard before making and then repeating it later in the show. As for the apology itself, I’ll let Allapundit do the dissection:

The closest we get to an explanation is that the decision to drop the bomb was “complicated,” but of course that’s why Cliff May brought it up — to draw a parallel with the decision to waterboard terrorists. The moral calculus about how far to go in roughing up jihadis to save how many lives is difficult, as was the calculus about how many lives would be saved in the long run by incinerating Japanese kids in Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the war. The fact that Stewart is a hard no on the former yet considers the latter iffy suggests a mentality I simply can’t fathom. Is it just a matter of Truman having been a Democrat, whose motives were therefore pure, as opposed to Bush supposedly getting his Republican rocks off by torturing terrorists? Or is it that Truman’s already been vindicated by history and isn’t safe to criticize the way Bush still is?

At least, and for whatever reason, Stewart felt compelled to retract the statement upon further reflection, which is more than one can say for the lemmings who eagerly followed him off the cliff. How would history have judged a man who could have saved thousands of American lives but chose instead to adhere to some misplaced and misguided sense of idealism? We may yet find out.

Here’s former CIA Director Porter Goss commenting on all the outlandish liars in Congress:

A disturbing epidemic of amnesia seems to be plaguing my former colleagues on Capitol Hill. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, members of the committees charged with overseeing our nation’s intelligence services had no higher priority than stopping al-Qaeda. In the fall of 2002, while I was chairman of the House intelligence committee, senior members of Congress were briefed on the CIA’s “High Value Terrorist Program,” including the development of “enhanced interrogation techniques” and what those techniques were. This was not a one-time briefing but an ongoing subject with lots of back and forth between those members and the briefers.

Today, I am slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as “waterboarding” were never mentioned. It must be hard for most Americans of common sense to imagine how a member of Congress can forget being told about the interrogations of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. In that case, though, perhaps it is not amnesia but political expedience.

Let me be clear. It is my recollection that:

– The chairs and the ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, known as the Gang of Four, were briefed that the CIA was holding and interrogating high-value terrorists.

– We understood what the CIA was doing.

– We gave the CIA our bipartisan support.

– We gave the CIA funding to carry out its activities.

– On a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission against al-Qaeda.

I do not recall a single objection from my colleagues. They did not vote to stop authorizing CIA funding. And for those who now reveal filed “memorandums for the record” suggesting concern, real concern should have been expressed immediately — to the committee chairs, the briefers, the House speaker or minority leader, the CIA director or the president’s national security adviser — and not quietly filed away in case the day came when the political winds shifted. And shifted they have.

A very true point by William McGurn: Now that Democrats have their coveted 60-vote majority in the Senate, why haven’t they legislatively banned and thus made illegal the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques,” including waterboarding?

Why indeed.

Over the past few years, the Democrats have moved to ban waterboarding only when it was clear that such a bill would not pass — or would be vetoed by George W. Bush. In September 2006, Sen. Edward Kennedy introduced an amendment to the Military Commissions Act that would have effectively defined waterboarding as a war crime, and it was defeated largely along partisan lines. In February 2008, when Democrats were in control of Congress, they made a big fuss about sending a bill that would have limited interrogation to techniques found in the Army field manual. They did so knowing President Bush would veto it, and that he had the votes to sustain that veto.

Today the Democrats have an even larger majority — plus a president who would sign such legislation. So why the call for a truth commission instead? The answer is a nasty one: If Congress made waterboarding illegal now, they would be making clear that it was not illegal before.

Andrew McCarthy is the former assistant U.S. attorney who put Omar Abdel-Rahman (the blind sheik) behind bars for the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. Mr. McCarthy explained it this way to me: “When Senate Democrats didn’t have the votes, they voted to make waterboarding illegal. Now they have the votes, but there’s no effort to ban waterboarding. And the reason is that they are more interested in setting off a partisan witch hunt than passing a principled ban on something they say is torture.”

Here’s the latest interview between Dennis Miller and former Guantanamo Bay JAG officer Kyndra Rotunda-Miller. Listen to the whole thing.

Ho, hum, more misleading slant from the New York Times. Nothing new here:

[Fox News] The New York Times reported last week that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, was waterboarded 183 times in one month by CIA interrogators. The “183 times” was widely circulated by news outlets throughout the world.

It was shocking. And it was highly misleading. The number is a vast inflation, according to information from a U.S. official and the testimony of the terrorists themselves.

A U.S. official with knowledge of the interrogation program told FOX News that the much-cited figure represents the number of times water was poured onto Mohammed’s face — not the number of times the CIA applied the simulated-drowning technique on the terror suspect.  According to a 2007 Red Cross report, he was subjected a total of “five sessions of ill-treatment.”

“The water was poured 183 times — there were 183 pours,” the official explained, adding that “each pour was a matter of seconds.”

183 pours? What a bargain for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed! If a pour is equal to each of his 3,000 9-11 victims it’s only 1/16th the number he should have received!

How incredibly weak we look before our enemies right now. They must be getting a good laugh at our hand wringing and self-flagellation. And, they are no doubt updating their capture-training methods to reflect exactly how far we are willing to go (or, rather, how far we aren’t).