Actually, I'm pretty sure most Americans were introduced to SERE by the 1997 Ridley Scott film G.I. Jane, where "Jordan O'Neill" (played by Demi Moore) is subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques by Aragorn from the Lord of the Rings.

I bet if we tortured him he'd remember if he read it or not.

Ironically all this "legal" torture would magically become illegal again if the senior members of this administration were suddenly subjected to such techniques in the course of these hearings.

Hugs,
Super J.

I watched David Inglisas (SIC) former US Attorney from NM on the Daily Show promoting his new book. The salient question Stewart asked was whether the higher ups were going to get their due? The former US Attorney said that a process will have to be employed not unlike how they busted up the MOB, (interesting metaphor) first going after the little fish and flipping them with serious prosecution and the working up the food chain.

Fitzgerald did this effectively in IL with the corrupt GOP and Gov Ryan's Governorship. Maybe we need to appoint Fitzgerald as a special prosecutor during the next Obama Administration to go through the entire Bush Presidency and find all the prosecutions to be had.

It might be appalling and politically disheartening to the Conservatives who have no Conscience, but it might be necessary to put America back on the high moral ground in the Global Community.

Suggestion to future Committee's; provide witnesses with all relevant documents in a contracts/legal folder cross-indexed and chronological. I watched in disgust, as Haynes suffered from memory lapse after memory lapse, and got away with it for the most part. Attorneys live and die by documentation, and the clean table in front of him attests to his commitment to the truth of the matter being investigated by the Committee.

Umm . . . this isn't a movie where the detainees are actors pretending to be tortured. This is reality: your country, the US, deliberately engaged in the war crime of torture. Torture is always and everywhere prohibited, at risk of the death penalty. Torture cannot be made legal. And even the ATTEMPT to make it legal is illegal.

That means that every shred of the fig-leaf effort by the Bushit criminal enterprise to make it appear legal is null-and-void.

Screw Hollywood and filmic fantasies: deal with those realities.

As to impeachment: we know it's a non-"starter" becaues it wouldn't go anywhere in the Senate. Unless . . .

I was one rivited by the Watergate hearings, especially those in the House. Initially, the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee fell all over themselves defending Nixon. There was no way they were going to buy impeahcing him.

Then, as the evidence began to mount, and to be revealed, the Republicans, one by one, beginning with Baker's' "What did he known, and when did he know it?" began to change. The first to vote for impeachment was Cohen of ME.

A bit of background: there was an effort in the House to investigate the Watergate break-in that Fall, months after it occurred; but the Republicans refused to show for that committee's hearings, so a quorum could not be achieved. Next, the Ervin hearings occurred -- in the Senate. As that snowballed, the House was compelled by the attention and pressure to act.

So, yes: formal impeachment begins in the House; but formal investigation need not.

And I note that the Washington Post has finally been running, on the front page, a story a day on these particular hearings and their results. And it's obvious that the Senate hasn't been sitting on its hands or pretending reality doesn't exist; it has been meticulously investigating, and compiling evidence, and doing the drudge work of putting it all in order.

And there will be further investigative hearings and reports coming within the next several months. Will there be a "tipping point" at which the Senate Republicans throw in the towel on the Bushit criminal enterprise -- a point at which the issue has "cooked" long enough that the House, being ready to impeach -- the Speaker can be outvoted -- will finally get an "all clear" from the Senate?

The results of horse races and jury trials are usually not known before the race is run, or the trial is held.

We need to remember that the impeachment cases against Bush and Cheney have not been presented.

Anyone who pretends to know, today, how the Senate would judge Bush and Cheney AFTER hearing the cases against them is being presumptuous.

If the House were to conduct hearings, a great deal more evidence, and testimony from witnesses UNDER OATH, would come out.

Please allow for the possibility that the cases presented against both Bush and Cheney might well be so overwhelming and so persuasive that at least some Republican Senators would not be able, in good conscience, and in public, to leave them in office.

Maybe ... just maybe ... there'd be enough.

"Fitzgerald did this effectively in IL with the corrupt GOP and Gov Ryan's Governorship. Maybe we need to appoint Fitzgerald as a special prosecutor during the next Obama Administration to go through the entire Bush Presidency and find all the prosecutions to be had."

Oh yeah, about that, John Dean noticed this about how Obama is NOT actually EVER going prosecute anyone in the Bush administration:

Obama: You know, I often get questions about impeachment at town hall meetings and I've said that is not something I think would be fruitful to pursue because I think that impeachment is something that should be reserved for exceptional circumstances.

You know, as IF Bush has NOT had ANY exceptional circumstance already for impeachment - like you know, trying to get congress to appove of his "enhanced interrogation techniques" aka torture that Bush has been allowing in his administration.

And if Obama can't even stand up the lies of this new FISA Bill - well now you see why Obama has decide how it is so much easier to simply trash MoveOn.org. Our newly voted for agent of change is running as cowardly, and as fast as he can down the path of least resistance.