The reason Holder's CIA investigation is a total waste of time (and he knows it)

[bushmeister0]

Or he should know it, if he read the non-redacted version . . .

As the NYT points out in this article, there were no "rogue" bad apples running around with power tools . . . the report

" . . . Is a portrait of overwhelming control exercised from C.I.A. headquarters and the Department of Justice — control Bush administration officials say was intended to ensure that the program was safe and legal.

Managers, doctors and lawyers not only set the program’s parameters but dictated every facet of a detainee’s daily routine, monitoring interrogations on an hour-by-hour basis. From their Washington offices, they obsessed over the smallest details . . ."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/us/26prison.html?hp

Managers, doctors and lawyers

Who are these lawyers? Who are these doctors? Why are they still practicing and what about the whole "overwhelming control" coming from the White House down? Investigating to see if a few agents or contractors went beyond the "guidelines" ok'd by Yoo & Co. is a complete waste of time.

NYT: "Any prosecution that focuses narrowly on low-level interrogators who on a few occasions broke the rules may appear unfair, since most of the brutal treatment was authorized from the White House on down."

Well, duh!

[sandnsea]

1. Didn't they say this about Fitzgerald and Libby too?

Didn't he start with lower level nobodies and work his way up as far as he could go?

How is it that the NY Times always manages to miss these stories when Republicans are in office, but pour the ink by the gallon when it's a Democrat they don't like.

[bushmeister0]

3. John Durham's mandate is to investigate less than a dozen particular

interrogations. Even if he does find BushCo's fingerprints all over it (which how could he not?) he's only looking to find "bad apples."

It goes no further.

[sandnsea]

7. And two months ago he was never going to do this

According to the oh so wise ones on DU - despite being told repeatedly that Holder would go where the evidence led, which is exactly what Obama said. And it will be the case this time. If they find evidence with George Bush's direct fingerprints on it, they'll go there. I don't know what the sickness is in a person's head that would prefer to live in cynical negativity, but that's all this constant yammering against this administration is.

[Laelth]

2. That doesn't mean it's a waste, per se.

I am not following the logic of the OP's headline.

:dem:

-Laelth

[bushmeister0]

4. It's a waste of time because looking into the actions of a few contractors

or agents kind of misses the big picture by a few thousand miles.

[emulatorloo]

5. If Cheney authorized power drills etc, that is a whole different ball game

Every good prosecutor starts small and sees what shakes out.

Once the screws are put to the "bad apples" I think some interesting things are going to shake out.

[lib_wit_it]

6. And, by isolating those few for consequences, suggests that the others did nothing wrong.

But, I don't know that more won't come of this, by some miracle. (Wishful thinking, I guess.)

[ThomWV]

8. I would say that whoever wrote that did not read the Report - I did

And if I had a version from which I could cut and paste text I'd go get it for you right now, but this nonsense is refuted on a footnote that exists somewhere around page 70 or so. I recall it being about three quarters of the way through the Report. At any rate what it says is that during some specific period the interrogators (torturers) were clearly using procedures that were past the proscribed point of being excessive. There were guideliens in place and they were being exceeded. Its in the Report.

[bushmeister0]

9. So, therefore this proves the premise of the article is bogus?

I don't recall anyone saying there might not have been people that went beyond the proscribed guidelines, which were completely egregious to begin with. If interrogators went too far, they did so safe in the knowledge that they'd get away with it. All they had to do is look at the nod and wink they were getting from above.

Which brings us back to why Holder is wasting the special prosecutor's time with going after the small fry in the fish bowl when there's a whole ocean out there full of the big fish.