Larisa Alexandrovna: What Did Karl Rove Know About Torture And When Did He Know It?

http://www.atlargely.com/atlargely/2009/05/what-did-karl-rove-know-about-torture-and-when-did-he-know-it.html

May 14, 2009

What did Karl Rove know about torture and when did he know it?

Karl Rove - a man who should be behind bars, not in front of a keyboard penning propaganda for the Wall Street Murdoch - has thrown down a double dog dare to Speaker Nancy Pelosi:


First of all, we don't know what exactly Speaker Pelosi was told because that is still classified or even if she was told the truth as I doubt she was. But, let us assume that she did indeed receive briefings on the use of torture techniques, how then does Rove's column clear his boss, himself, and the rest of the Bush administration who were in on the torture policy, directed it, ordered it, and all but actually tortured someone to death with their own hands (as far as we know)?

His column does not help his former boss' cause at all, but it does raise some interesting questions and paints a picture of desperation. It also places Rove directly inside the torture argument from a position I had not previously considered. Yes, Rove and Cheney are in a panic like the cowards that they are. Yet I find it curious that Rove would so openly blackmail the Democrats unless he himself had a reason to be worried about possible torture prosecution.

Think about it. Instead of writing a sober analysis that in some way argues for the benefits of torture, as his various friends have done, Rove is using the only tool he knows how to use, blackmail.

What Rove is saying to Pelosi is, if you go after "us" on the torture issue, we will go after "you" as an accomplice.

That is rather a bold move, no?

What Rove's column actually accomplishes is to raise questions about his own involvement in the torture policy. Rove had the highest security clearances during the the planning and later the selling (via word games and hyped up threats against this nation) of the torture policy. He sat in on National Security Council meetings. He even outed a CIA officer. So I am rather comfortable with the assumption that Mr. Rove knew a good deal about the torture, questions surrounding its illigality and as he notes in his open blackmail of Pelosi "If knew what was going on and did nothing, does that make an accessory to a crime of torture?" Yes, I do think that Mr. Rove is an accessory and possibly more.

I think the courts need to consider the role Mr. Rove's played in helping to sell the public and Congress on on a set of lies, including the justifications for the Iraq war and the torture policy. Did Mr. Rove help "fix the facts" around the torture policy in much the same way that he helped "fix the facts" around the Iraq war? Most of you will recall that Rove was the "chairman" of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), whose only purpose was to sell the Iraq war to the public. What was Mr. Rove's role in the torture policy?

I am not too worried about what the Speaker knew and when she knew it. I have no dog in that fight and I believe that all who were involved in allowing the torture policy to be used are accomplices. So by all means, let us indeed investigate Pelosi should the evidence prove her to be lying. But I think we need to add Mr. Rove to the list of possible accomplices as well. We need to ask him what he is so brazenly asking as a form of open blackmail - what did you know and when did you know it? Moreover, what was your - Rove's - involvement in constructing and selling the torture policy?

:kick:

So when did he know? From the word "enhanced"

at others.

entitled to receive? After his role in exposing Valerie Plame, election fraud, Don Siegelman political prosecution, and US Atty scandal, I don't understand why this despicable POS is not rotting away in some cell. :mad:

frog march.

karl admits to illegal torture....

That is why we need an independent prosecutor to handle this, and let the investigation go where it goes.

unbelieveable.

so they engage in blackmail. Babylonsister is right, the Principles Committee was The Torture Team.

Rove implicates himself by virtue of resorting to the blackmail tactic.

He also stokes the fires that will make investigation inevitable, by upping the ante on who is telling the truth, and as we know, Rove's strengths rely on his ability to get around the truth, twist it, and obfuscate it.

And as the head of WHIG, who (besides Cheney) would have more reason to go to any lengths to produce a link between Iraq and 9/11?