So the whole torture thing is back with a vengence. I'm with the "waterboarding is torture" I think that is indisputable. The part I wonder is, will it serve us well to go after these Bush administration scumbags and prosecute them or will it serve us better to do something like a censure of these guys and move on...kind of like a Ford pardons Nixon thing...let's not rehash what we already know is wrong.

Also, who else thinks that the handful of soldiers that the Bush administration laid this on, should be released and pardoned in light of the fact that these orders are now proven to have come from the top and were not just the cruelty of a bunch of low level enlisted personnel.


I'm pretty much of the opinion that we did the WWII thing without becoming like the Nazis and Japanese, so I don't buy into the "We have to be like them because they are brutal" argument.

At this point all it is doing is lowering our international standing, you know these guys have Teflon coating so getting anything big to stick is going to be harder than hell. That and with all the "well he told me to" then "well he told me to tell him to" crap going on it's going to be impossible to get those truly responsible. I think a much better move would be for Obama to say something along the lines of "Hey these guys were D-bags, the US pledges to never use these methods again no matter what" and then remove any of them that still have jobs.

Yes the Administration should commute the sentences of the Soldiers who got scapegoated by the Bush crowd.

So the whole torture thing is back with a vengence. I'm with the "waterboarding is torture" I think that is indisputable. The part I wonder is, will it serve us well to go after these Bush administration scumbags and prosecute them or will it serve us better to do something like a censure of these guys and move on...kind of like a Ford pardons Nixon thing...let's not rehash what we already know is wrong.

Also, who else thinks that the handful of soldiers that the Bush administration laid this on, should be released and pardoned in light of the fact that these orders are now proven to have come from the top and were not just the cruelty of a bunch of low level enlisted personnel.


I'm pretty much of the opinion that we did the WWII thing without becoming like the Nazis and Japanese, so I don't buy into the "We have to be like them because they are brutal" argument.


An emphatic NO! These soldiers could have refused the order and taken the chance that during the Article 15/Courtsmartial they would have been vindicated upon exposing the content of the order(s); or, they could have followed the order(s) given by their superior and then reported the event to the military justice folks; or, they could have reported the event(s) within 24 hours to their family and friends back home, for them to contact their Congressional folks to investigate.

The situation was pretty much a no win as soon as they were ordered to behave in a manner not consistent with the training and instruction given, as well as the general morals and traditions of America. But, such is the lot of a soldier. They volunteered to be in uncomfortable situations, and it was their choice how to respond to the situation. I cannot look at them as victims.


That Bush authorized, and Cheney still vehemently defends, the use of methods that we called other countries criminal for using against us will forever color their legacy. Whether they are successful tools of interrogation continues to be argued by experts for both sides of the issue, but they are contrary to what we have always claimed as the moral high ground.

If we want to truly sink to the level of brutality of the fanatics, simply identify a few leaders of the terror groups, round up as many of their family as you can locate (kidnap) and behead them publicly, after which you make it known that this will be how anyone tied to these terror groups will be treated. As we watch the mass relocation of families, we will gain more intelligence to where the baddies are hiding. Somehow, I don't think Cheney would hesitate to sign off on such a plan.

Unfortunately, we have too many both in and out of our military that would not hesitate to follow the order, or volunteer for the job. Like the folks living in the Middle East, most of us want to provide for our families and go about our daily lives with the least disruption, but we are always painted with the same brush as those idiots among us that prefer the extreme and fanatical approach.


I do think Obama should get us talking about some more important things, though, and not dwell too much on what he has vowed will not happen again. Maybe he can get folks talking about the criminal that served as Bush's veep, and how to investgate the Cheney/Halliburton connection, and follow the money.

It all depends. It will further widen the divide and is a complete no win situation. Obama will not have much of a buffer if something else pops up and he needs the Republicans for support. He won't get any if so. They are taking this as a personal attack on their doctrine. He has really gone "All In". Hopefully he has a good hand.

If we don't prosecute them, then any country is allowed to do so. There is no statue of limitations on war crimes, so that anytime until these guys die of old age, they could be arrested in any country and hauled off to where they'll be tried. Like all those old concentration camp guards that keep end up found, then tried. And that war ended a half century ago.

An emphatic NO! These soldiers could have refused the order and taken the chance that during the Article 15/Courtsmartial they would have been vindicated upon exposing the content of the order(s); or, they could have followed the order(s) given by their superior and then reported the event to the military justice folks; or, they could have reported the event(s) within 24 hours to their family and friends back home, for them to contact their Congressional folks to investigate.

But, you have to remember that what we are being shown are documents by Bush/Gonzalez justice dept attorneys who wrote that it was legal. I think that those soldiers (they were actually National Guard members) to have refused the orders would have found themselves facing charges of refusing orders and possibly mutiny.

I think what we see is a bunch of those at the top had what they thought was their asses covered and they used the enlisted soldiers as scapegoats.

If you see now, Cheney, his daughter and others are blaming the military...so much for their support the troops...it was always bullshit and has been since Reagan.

soldiers (they were actually National Guard members)

They were Reserves. That aside, these days the Guard/Reserve share a lot of the burden so don't hate :p

And secondly, stuffing a plunger up a prisoners ass, and the human pyramids is significantly different from waterboarding in that waterboarding is a proven torture method; and plungers in the butt is something a bunch of bored morons came up with.

One of the FIRST things drilled into your head as a recruit is that is not just your choice to disobey an unlawful order, but your DUTY to disobey such orders and report them. The dumbshits at Abu Gharaib got what was coming, more of the officers should have been nailed to the wall as well.

It's a tricky one. I understand a lot of people here saying 'Why? Let's move on, it will only lower our reputation, it's a loose-loose deal.'

But then - it takes balls to admit this was wrong, and to try and remedy the situation. Sure it could get messy, but listen, someone needs to pay. It's a bad deal.

An emphatic NO! These soldiers could have refused the order and taken the chance that during the Article 15/Courtsmartial they would have been vindicated upon exposing the content of the order(s); or, they could have followed the order(s) given by their superior and then reported the event to the military justice folks; or, they could have reported the event(s) within 24 hours to their family and friends back home, for them to contact their Congressional folks to investigate.

While in a perfect world I would concur with your statement, It should be noted that examples were made, early on, of soldiers who tried to refuse the order to torture (their complaints fell on deaf, and frequently intentionally subversive, ears); and that in multiple cases the soldiers felt so without recourse that suicide (or perhaps that is what the US Army wanted people to think) ended up being their chosen option:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-mitchell/us-soldier-killed-herself_b_190517.html

I have a lot of work to do today (have to be out of the old apartment by morning) and so don't have time to respond to this as thoroughly as I'd like at the moment - this isn't the original site I had stumbled across earlier this week which detailed her objections - and also that she was a degreed psychologist and *trained* interrogator, which suggests that her objections probably had considerable merit. Given that the soldiers knew that there would be no recourse if they objected, even if they appealed to the highest levels of the chain of command, I think has to be looked at as a mitigating circumstance in these cases on an individual basis.

I still think a thorough and comprehensive investigation of the entire torture apparatus needs to be conducted; if a truth and reconciliation type commission is the only to get the truth out of the woodwork, then that is what we should do. The American people need to see the heart of darkness of this whole period in history so that we are sufficiently humiliated and sickened as to never permit it again...

Regards,
Nydia

Well considering we would need a to prosecute a good chunk of congress, I don't think we will.

I personally don't think water boarding is torture, that is my opinion, we even used to do it to our own troops during training to get them prepared for other countries doing it to them.

Well considering we would need a to prosecute a good chunk of congress, I don't think we will.

I personally don't think water boarding is torture, that is my opinion, we even used to do it to our own troops during training to get them prepared for other countries doing it to them.

whether or not it is torture is not really up to opinion, its what i like to call a fact. here, why dont you read this snippet of information from politifact:

"McCain is referencing the Tokyo Trials, officially known as the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. After World War II, an international coalition convened to prosecute Japanese soldiers charged with torture. At the top of the list of techniques was water-based interrogation, known variously then as 'water cure,' 'water torture' and 'waterboarding,' according to the charging documents. It simulates drowning." Politifact went on to report, "A number of the Japanese soldiers convicted by American judges were hanged, while others received lengthy prison sentences or time in labor camps."

Once again like I said...in my opinion. My opinion has no bearing on the law. Second, if you are to prosecute all involved you would have to do the former President, Vice President, and half of congress. So seeing as how half the people in power would go to jail, I some how doubt it is going to happen.

so until your country steps up (ahahahahahaha) to show just how much displeasure they are getting from this nothing will be done.

Second i'm sure the "justice" meted out after WWII had nothing to do with the fact they started the war and lost.

Once again like I said...in my opinion. My opinion has no bearing on the law.Thank god.

Second, if you are to prosecute all involved you would have to do the former President, Vice President, and half of congress. So seeing as how half the people in power would go to jail, I some how doubt it is going to happen.sad but true.

so until your country steps up (ahahahahahaha) to show just how much displeasure they are getting from this nothing will be done.wat.

My point was until the international community is able to appropriately express their displeasure, all your whining in the world doesn't matter.

Once again like I said...in my opinion. My opinion has no bearing on the law. Second, if you are to prosecute all involved you would have to do the former President, Vice President, and half of congress. So seeing as how half the people in power would go to jail, I some how doubt it is going to happen.

so until your country steps up (ahahahahahaha) to show just how much displeasure they are getting from this nothing will be done.

Second i'm sure the "justice" meted out after WWII had nothing to do with the fact they started the war and lost.


You must be getting info from a different source than I am, since I am not aware of "half of congress" being involved in Executive decisions. While it is true some in Congress had access to knowledge of the interrogation methods, the degree to which they bear accountability is in question; and, that number is a bit less than half, I am sure.

There's not much middle ground on this. You send a strong message either way. Can't just pretend it didn't happen or that it wasn't a big deal.

If nothing is done, that sends a clear message that it's open season. Punishment is important in order to prevent this in the future. Going forward, no one should have even a glimmer of a notion that they can do these things and get away with them.

All the excuses about further egging our face on the international stage are distractions. Our face is already covered with egg. The best way to regain some respect is to lead by example and prove that we walk the walk that we talk.

Seems these days we are only going to go to war against groups of people like the Taliban or <insert> some other extremist group...do you really think they are following all the rules the international community would like to see? I don't see cutting heads of people and then putting it on TV was in that list of things all GOOD. if they get their hands on our soliders they are going to do what ever they want, its already open season on them. Torture is not right, the damage is already done, but then again the other side sure the hell isn't playing nicey nicey.

If we're going to let the "bad guys" turn us into mirrors of them, who really wins?

Like I said it isn't right, but to think that because some bad eggs already done this, that now our soldiers are open season because of it, they already where and ...ah did I miss all the posts condoning the othersides tactics? Nope, seems its ok for them.

Second i'm sure the "justice" meted out after WWII had nothing to do with the fact they started the war and lost.

Mostly it had to do with the "lost" part.



Seems these days we are only going to go to war against groups of people like the Taliban or <insert> some other extremist group...do you really think they are following all the rules the international community would like to see?

It's not about who they are, it's about who we want to be.

Even Shepard Smith of Fox Nexs (of all places) gets it (linked from today's Balkinization):

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2009/04/unvarnished-truth-about-torture.html

After the outburst at 0:19, listen to the meat of the issue in contention from the judge (fellow on the right). If multiple commentators on Fox are willing to come out forcefully against the fundamental and deliberate dishonesty and repulsiveness of the Bush administration's game of Twister with the law, then how can the Obama administration leave the investigation lie or try to bury/placate it away with a straight face?

Regards,
Nydia

Long, but a really good and in-depth column on the 'what should be done?' question, with numerous citations/quotes, from KOS:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/4/26/724717/-Finding-Justice

and the Mark Danner op-ed from today's Washington Post, linked in that article, in which he advocates both a truth commission and prosecutions:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/24/AR2009042402654_pf.html

I agree with both authors that while Obama may want to "look forward", the question, and the damage to the government's reputation, will continue to haunt him unless he is willing to swallow hard and shine a light into those dark corners.

Regards,
Nydia

This is a really tough one for Obama.

Let's face it, Bush was ultimately responsible for the policy, not his underlings. What we are really talking about is prosecuting a former President of the US for taking actions he felt (rightly or wrongly) were necessary in the defense of the country.

I for one abhor the policy decision he made in this regard, but I am leery of opening Pandora's box of prosecuting former leaders for their official policies. I can't think of a better way to hamstring future presidents in their foreign policy dealings. No threat of military action to back up diplomacy would ever be taken seriously again, as the subjects of such diplomacy would be aware that the President would not dare take steps that could lead to his prosecution at the end of his term. There is *always* someone wanting to press charges for political reasons.

Suppose Obama decides we need to step in to stop another genocide somewhere or send military aid to an ally but is afraid he'll be prosecuted because military action always results in deaths of innocent bystanders or may violate someone's interpretation of international law. Will he be forced to sit on the sidelines out of fear of legal action by our own people or by international tribunal? Which actions would be grounds for prosecution and which wouldn't? Do we really want to give defacto veto power to other countries (many of whom are rivals or even unfriendly) over our ability to react to international events by the implicit threat of prosecution?

That is the real problem we need to wrestle with. Does justice for misdeeds past require us to ignore our future self interest?

This is a really tough one for Obama.

Let's face it, Bush was ultimately responsible for the policy, not his underlings. What we are really talking about is prosecuting a former President of the US for taking actions he felt (rightly or wrongly) were necessary in the defense of the country.

I for one abhor the policy decision he made in this regard, but I am leery of opening Pandora's box of prosecuting former leaders for their official policies. I can't think of a better way to hamstring future presidents in their foreign policy dealings. No threat of military action to back up diplomacy would ever be taken seriously again, as the subjects of such diplomacy would be aware that the President would not dare take steps that could lead to his prosecution at the end of his term. There is *always* someone wanting to press charges for political reasons.

Suppose Obama decides we need to step in to stop another genocide somewhere or send military aid to an ally but is afraid he'll be prosecuted because military action always results in deaths of innocent bystanders or may violate someone's interpretation of international law. Will he be forced to sit on the sidelines out of fear of legal action by our own people or by international tribunal? Which actions would be grounds for prosecution and which wouldn't? Do we really want to give defacto veto power to other countries (many of whom are rivals or even unfriendly) over our ability to react to international events by the implicit threat of prosecution?

That is the real problem we need to wrestle with. Does justice for misdeeds past require us to ignore our future self interest?


Bingo.

Let's face it, Bush was ultimately responsible for the policy, not his underlings. What we are really talking about is prosecuting a former President of the US for taking actions he felt (rightly or wrongly) were necessary in the defense of the country.

...

Suppose Obama decides we need to step in to stop another genocide somewhere or send military aid to an ally but is afraid he'll be prosecuted because military action always results in deaths of innocent bystanders or may violate someone's interpretation of international law.

This question, "does expediency outweigh legality," has generally been answered yes, but there have been few other cases in which a sitting President committed acts he knew were illegal at the time. Clinton's perjury was overblown and on an issue that should have never been before congress in the first place, Oliver North took one for Reagan in the prior act of comparable wrongess, and Ford pardoned Nixon with the legal opinion that in order to be pardoned, you have to be guilty.

Our political ideology simply does not allow for the President, or anyone else, to be above the law, and while there will always be shenanigans, not prosecuting sends a much more dangerous message to future generations.

We could just let it go and when Bush or one of his underlings in the chain of command is arrested while traveling overseas for war crimes, we can just take the high road of allowing the legal process to play out. :rolleyes:

All fine and logical arguments with strong morale grounds. Should there be an active prosecution right now? Not just no, but hell fuck no. Right and wrong do not matter much in Washington. Whatever gets the job done is what matters which means a lot of morale ambiguity. No matter what anyone does, there is going to be strong opposition due to how polarized the US political machine is. Plenty have said that there are no white hats or black hats and that is 100% true. To use a quote from a game of all things:

"There is no right or wrong. Only decisions and consequences"

To prosecute would be the right thing at the wrong time. For one, the fall out would be about 40% of the population of the United States having no political representation what so ever in Washington. Some might argue that is the case right now, but in the event of an active prosecution, which would be the very last straw for the Republicans, they would more than likely completely refuse to participate in any government process other than the current acts of being the party of "No!". The Republicans are running a guerrilla campaign of sabotage and the nation has seen nothing yet if the proceedings go through to bring up "their heroes" on charges. You have to remember..... this is a cult we are talking about and not a political party. A prosecution would probably lead them to all just go home to their respective districts to lick their wounds and plot their next moves. If there was not the other challenges currently besieging the country and further polarizing it, then perhaps it would be the right thing to do at the right time. Any prosecution requires a unified front, of which Obama will NEVER get as long as he is in office, thus, it needs to be let go...... for now. Probably indefinitely. Washington needs to lead the country out of a crisis or two first before completely imploding by fratricide.

From 2003: http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/17/sprj.irq.bush.transcript/



"War crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished and it will be no defense to say, 'I was just following orders'."

Doh?

From 2003: http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/17/sprj.irq.bush.transcript/



Doh?


Funny what was said when one thought the Rovian "republicans will be a 1000 year Reich" and when you think you have the whole thing pinned on a couple of national guard privates who were a step above retarded.

It doesn't matter, Sanchek. One crisis at a time and the docket is full as far as that goes for the time being. No unified front = no prosecution. It won't seem like justice. Just more political bickering.

What unified front? Look at the votes on politically charged bills like the stimulus.

You'd have to start a Civil War to get much more divided.

What unified front? Look at the votes on politically charged bills like the stimulus.

You'd have to start a Civil War to get much more divided.

Thanks Sanchek. That is why there can be no prosecution right now.

So, war crimes are alright, long as you manage to royally screw up the country and leave your political party in ruins when you exit office?

I vote for a long, closed door, low profile, special grand jury investigation.

Work quietly and diligently for the next 5 years and then we can see what comes out of it.

So, war crimes are alright, long as you manage to royally screw up the country and leave your political party in ruins when you exit office?

Sanchek, how much more do you think the people in general can endure, eh? Enough is enough. If anything happens, LL has it pretty well pegged. Slow. Thorough. Methodical. Oh and with the press being completely left left out. The whole closed door aspect with politics checked at the door. No bullshit on Fox news or CNN to further fan the flames. If it can be done without becoming so hopelessly politically charged as to push the country that much closer to the brink, than fine. Have at it. Otherwise this will go to just further the chaos.

Right now the Republicans don't give a flying fuck if Armegeddon was knocking at the Presidents door. They would probably invite it in and serve it refreshments because they don't give a shit about helping the country or the President or doing what is morally correct or helping anyone but themselves and their image. They would go out of their way to make any prosecution be so destructive that everyone will forget why it is even being undertaken. It leaves us all with the fact that now Washington can fuck up a wet dream and a prosecution is too complicated to be undertaken. It would almost make sense to invite a third party in to do it, such as the UN.

So you think encouraging that divisive behavior is the answer? All they have to do is hold their breath until their faces turn blue and daddy Obama will let them have desert before dinner?

Obama already laid out an ultimatum regarding the use of reconciliation (http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090427-718369.html) (how ironically named is that?) to push his health care reform through, no matter what the GOP says or does. It's not as he's coming to the table with olive branches anyway.

Yes.. how undemocratic to have the nerve to require 51/100 votes to pass something.

And lets not attempt to soar over the muck here San. The honest truth is you only want to see this go on so Washington can tie itself in knots for a couple years and nothing else gets done.



"If we had lost, we all would have been convicted of war crimes" -Gen. Curtis Lemay talking to Robert McNamara about the fire bombing campaign on Japan.

We burned to death hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children in Japan well before we ever dropped 2 nukes on them. Dropped incendiary bombs on their wooden cities. In one raid, we dropped the B-29s to 7,000 feet and burnt to death 100,000 Japanese citizens. There were hundreds of these raids... burning down 50% of 40+ Japanese cities and the people living there.

So, here we are... upset that we did something bad in what we were all told was a war. Yes it sucks. I hate it as much as anyone else that it was done in my name. But NOTHING is to be learned or gained from this. The American people delivered justice and the people whose ideology allowed this to happen have been removed. To engage in self flagellation at this point is beyond counterproductive. It is destructive.

I would rather we made sure we never let it happen again.

I would rather we made sure we never let it happen again.

How do you propose we do that?

Should we only obey laws when convenient now? Isn't that precisely what we didn't want to let happen again?

I know this opinion will likely see me lambasted by most of the board here but...

Make sure to rewrite the laws and directives so it never happens again then walk away. There are far bigger things to accomplish than satisfy the MoveOn dot org crowd.

Is there any credible doubt that the laws already cover this? Outside of the likes of John Yoo and Alberto Gonzales, no one's fabricating the kind of legal opinions necessary to condone these things that happened.

If we're going to turn a blind eye when it's this clear cut, there's no point improving the laws. We've already decided that they'll only be followed when convenient.

Mind you, I'm about as far from the "MoveOn.org crowd" as you're going to find here, and I still think the law should be enforced.

"If the president authorizes it, it isn't torture"

I saw this on Balkinization this evening upon making it home from work and just *had* to post it, as it has to be seen to be believed. (Scroll down and read the transcript highlights also). This is Condoleeza Rice at Stanford University in late January of this year:

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2009/04/rice-bush-ordered-it-and-therefore-it.html

*This* is why we have to have a truth commission. I never did trust Ms. Rice, detecting the obvious whiff of ideology-colored blind lunacy on her (not to mention her fervent participation in the daily White House prayer meetings); but in this video (be sure to read the transcript) she exceeds land speed records for willful denial and twisting of reality, law, and for doublespeak. It is not enough to simply 'look forward' and *say* that a new day has dawned with regard to American policy and the interior machinations of our government. We must publicly expose and repudiate every bit of this activity in all its extreme hubris, corrosion to the rule of law, and double-dealing ugliness if we are to gain any trustworthiness and integrity back - for our own sake as well as in the eyes of the world.

If the Republicans, and those Democrats who are afraid to reveal their own skeletons, wish to try to stonewall and intervene in the process, let them - as more and more continues to be revealed I think it's going to paralyze and hamstring the government even if it it *isn't* dealt with, no matter how much Obama might with to ignore it for the sake of his agenda. If that means that we expose former and current administration officials to prosecution by foreign bodies (the UN), then that, too, should be allowed to happen.

Regards,
Nydia

The UN will not prosecute anyone. The UN is a crippled body with no real authority. It sucks but it is the truth. I think you guys are greatly under estimating the corruption in Washington if you think anything will come of this.

It also will not cripple anything. It will get shoved under the table, like the thousands of other scandals and underhanded bullshit that goes on every single day.

The UN will not prosecute anyone. The UN is a crippled body with no real authority. It sucks but it is the truth. I think you guys are greatly under estimating the corruption in Washington if you think anything will come of this.

It also will not cripple anything. It will get shoved under the table, like the thousands of other scandals and underhanded bullshit that goes on every single day.


I think that in the last two days there has been a huge lesson in the high level of corruption in Washington with comments from Dick Durban:

The Banks own this place

Concerning the inability to gain a 60 vote majority to reform the bankruptcy laws.

Our so called representatives seem to jump through hoops when it comes to giving these banks money...but do something for the people....HA

Once again provign that Pelosi is a worthless profiteering piece of shit

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitol-briefing/2009/05/cia_says_pelosi_was_briefed_on.html

In a 10-page memo outlining an almost seven-year history of classified briefings,

And had she or Porter Goss come out and revealed information in 2003 how shrill would have been everyones cry of treason?

Velvetsilence brings up a good point. I have no love for Pelosi, but we now have ample evidence that suggests that the Bush administration knew *exactly* what it was doing when it authorized those briefings. They, or more precisely Cheney, knew that the only way they would be able to get away with what they were doing was to bloody enough hands throughout the administration and on both sides of the aisle that no-one would dare raise a cry. This was disclosure was *precisely* about making sure that they were immune from future prosecution - and as Velvetsilence puts it, who would have *dare* spoken up in 2002? This was before the trumped up war in Iraq was even steamrollered through, when Congress believed that the administration was earnestly engaged in good faith pursuit of the actual 9-11 perpetrators...

The way that this was disclosed would have made it political suicide had she spoken up - and I'm sure that the way it was incrementally unrolled/revealed must have been an unfolding nightmare for everyone who had been dragged into being in the know. Should she have spoken up, anyway? Yes, she should have made her objections a matter of record *someplace*. Granted, she would have been tarred and feathered had she spoken up publicly in 2002, but she could have taken the Hillary Clinton out and spoken up when the breadth and depth of the criminal activity became more evident and saved some shreds of dignity...

And, + rep to Rover for the Dick Durbin comment - I just read about that event on the Senate floor this Thurdsay and yes, it speaks volumes. I would have liked to have known if Biden had been present or been willing to speak to that issue, and I eagerly, but not optimistically, await to see if Obama will attempt to exert some political force on the citizens' behalf on this issue.

Regards,
Nydia

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2009/05/12/lkl.jesse.long.cnn

Go Jesse! Awesome interview, thanks for posting that :)

The idiot Hasselback is stupid enough to argue with a former Navy SEAL about waterboarding and tortrure...does republican retardation have any limits?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/18/ventura-and-hasselbeck-de_n_204774.html

Dems don't have a limit either. Politicians in general are a bunch of gas-bags

Why worry about reality when you have The Message.

There is this view. I don't have a direct quote on this since it was a poll a co-worker was reading. An Aussie stated this about the torture question:

"If it would save the life of even one Australian soldier, all I have to say is this: Red is positive, black is negative and make sure his balls are wet!"

That's really the kicker here and why this will never have a feasible conclusion. You can argue that torture is wrong, but you can also argue that these are enemy combatants in a war, and the information gleaned saves lives. Of course there are those that would also argue that such treatment breeds the resentment that fuels more terrorism. That is not true. At least in the sense that we had many of our soldiers in Vietnam subjected to torture far more cruel than we could probably inflict, with John McCain being one of the highest profile examples. Some of the POWs returned to the fight but most went home and rebuilt their lives and eventually the war, like all wars, ended. None of them put on bomb vests, went to a crowded Vietnamese market and blew themselves up.

The subject of if its right or wrong doesn't exist. The question of if it is necessary rides on if people even think that GWOT is a real war or not, or just a catch phrase for a sham like the War on Drugs, although the War on Drugs is becoming in itself more of a real war every day. In the end, if its no longer required at this phase, then don't continue with the practice. Would prosecution solve anything? No. It wouldn't. All it would do is waste the tax payers money and further the divide of the nation. There is nothing done in Washington that doesn't stink of partisanship, and enough is enough. Let it go.

There is this view. I don't have a direct quote on this since it was a poll a co-worker was reading. An Aussie stated this about the torture question:

"If it would save the life of even one Australian soldier, all I have to say is this: Red is positive, black is negative and make sure his balls are wet!"

I like to call this the 24 defense. It's a compelling argument for something that has never been documented to happen. That's what the crux is, we are doing something morally repugnant that we know does not accomplish anything. This is not harsh measures for harsh times, it's cruelty for its own sake. It's forcing people to tell us what we want to hear, not finding out where the bomb is before it kills Pvt Johnny Patriotic.

The apologists have been very effective in recasting the discussion as an argument over justifications while quietly ignoring all the evidence presented by the people who implemented their policies that it didn't buy us anything; You can't argue the cost/benefit of something that has no benefit.

The real horror here is that the system has lost its mind, and is creating its own bubble reality. It's only a matter of time before something we care about a lot more than a bunch of backwater towelheads gets put under the gun (or waterspout).

"If it prevents one baby from getting addicted to crack, red is ..."

At the end of WWII we called for the prosecution and execution of the Japanese that water-boarded our troops while they were POW's, due to the Geneva Conventions.

Those that now wish to find some way to excuse the use by our own government against our enemies disgust me.

You cannot have it both ways. We either follow the rule of law, or we say fuck it and do as we please when we please. Like Jesse (whom I also am disgusted by usually) stated, "Why not allow the police to use these methods if they are not torture?".

I had a nice reply. This site's bullshit of kicking you off quicker than the time it takes to compose a post of course screwed me, of course so take two.
First off, to Malse and anyone else so convinced that there was no useful information gained and that it was ALL just political manipulation and vengence:

Where you there with the CIA? Was it YOUR job to process the information and deem it worthy of the costs associated with obtaining it? Or is this just conjecture based on the limited information from the media filtered through personal bias, beliefs, politics and morals? There still is a thing know as "Classified Information" and things are assigned that more so to keep it from the more meddlesome idealists in our OWN country as opposed to the so called enemy. Or is this a case of the general distaste of the government granting you the next logical step in your reasoning, which of course is sympathy towards the Jihadists? Well, they already have carte blanche as a result of that. Its a war. They do what it takes or dying trying. We have to sit and debate everything first, and then second guess ourselves later. The Talibans and Al Quedas of the world know that is a weakness they can exploit and that is why we can never win the so called Global War on Terror. No willingness to acknowlege the fact that we don't always have the ability to dictate what the rules of the conflict are. That is why we lost in Vietnam. The Viet Cong did what it takes to win where as we did what it took to keep our own country from splitting in two, which means we had to cut our losses. Its time to cut our losses once again, apparently.

There is just too much abiguity here. Too many trees falling in the forest with no one around to hear it, so the sound made is whatever people want the sound to be, even if the reality is something completely different. Its plausible to say something is wrong, and that the torture tactics, even if they saved lives, are that vastly wrong. That one's own opinion is worth more than a life? Forget it. Its too charged an issue to get any positive results. Best to move on. Let it go. Learn and push forward but spend the energy on the bridge burning witch hunts to build some new bridges. Restore our intregity while not being a door mat. Thats the challenge.

Or is it easier to just have more partisan bickering every time there is a change in party majority or presidential administration? Does that really solve anything, or is it just a more polite waterboarding? More "political manipulation and vengence"?

Where you there with the CIA? Was it YOUR job to process the information and deem it worthy of the costs associated with obtaining it? Or is this just conjecture based on the limited information from the media filtered through personal bias, beliefs, politics and morals?

No, this is opinion formed from the testimony, under oath, of individuals in the CIA and other entities who were involved, combined with the near total lack of any actions (like mass arrests, the destruction of terrorist cells, et al) that could have possibly been informed by them. Further combined with the written testimony of dozens of people not specifically involved with any of the GWOT(tm)(r) activities who also have either been waterboarded or waterboarded others.

If these people confessed to crimes, why weren't they ever prosecuted by and large? Why wasn't anyone else? Why was the whole thing passed around in a blame-game designed to removed specific responsibility from everyone and yet the CIA still reminds a huge, bloated, overfunded, consistently underperforming joke?

I operate on evidence, not ideology, filtered through the money taken out of my pocket in the name of stupidity. There is no ambiguity in this. We have laws saying doing something is not permitted, and then we did it anyway.


To flip your appeal to bureaucracy on its head, where is the positive result of torturing people? We have nothing but movie plot responses for that because there hasn't been anything in the real world we just violated dozens of our own laws in. Where is the specific, evidenced pay-off for this? Where is the jihadi we captured moments before he set off a bomb? Who is Leonardo diCaprio playing when he unmasks the Evil Imam? Was there an alternate ending in which they never find the secret informant?

Where is the tree of torture falling that it makes a noise to justify itself? You are still arguing cost/benefit on something that has no demonstrated benefit.

(and if this was a "do what it takes or die trying war" we would have invaded Saudi Arabia years ago. We have not. Draw your own conclusions)

I had a nice reply. This site's bullshit of kicking you off quicker than the time it takes to compose a post of course screwed me, of course so take two.
First off, to Malse and anyone else so convinced that there was no useful information gained and that it was ALL just political manipulation and vengence:

Where you there with the CIA? Was it YOUR job to process the information and deem it worthy of the costs associated with obtaining it? Or is this just conjecture based on the limited information from the media filtered through personal bias, beliefs, politics and morals? There still is a thing know as "Classified Information" and things are assigned that more so to keep it from the more meddlesome idealists in our OWN country as opposed to the so called enemy. Or is this a case of the general distaste of the government granting you the next logical step in your reasoning, which of course is sympathy towards the Jihadists? Well, they already have carte blanche as a result of that. Its a war. They do what it takes or dying trying. We have to sit and debate everything first, and then second guess ourselves later. The Talibans and Al Quedas of the world know that is a weakness they can exploit and that is why we can never win the so called Global War on Terror. No willingness to acknowlege the fact that we don't always have the ability to dictate what the rules of the conflict are. That is why we lost in Vietnam. The Viet Cong did what it takes to win where as we did what it took to keep our own country from splitting in two, which means we had to cut our losses. Its time to cut our losses once again, apparently.

There is just too much abiguity here. Too many trees falling in the forest with no one around to hear it, so the sound made is whatever people want the sound to be, even if the reality is something completely different. Its plausible to say something is wrong, and that the torture tactics, even if they saved lives, are that vastly wrong. That one's own opinion is worth more than a life? Forget it. Its too charged an issue to get any positive results. Best to move on. Let it go. Learn and push forward but spend the energy on the bridge burning witch hunts to build some new bridges. Restore our intregity while not being a door mat. Thats the challenge.

Or is it easier to just have more partisan bickering every time there is a change in party majority or presidential administration? Does that really solve anything, or is it just a more polite waterboarding? More "political manipulation and vengence"?

Agents and others involved have already testified under oath to congress that water boarding gave no useful information. No one has said under oath that it has. It is also a fact that the "useful" information gained was gotten at least two months before water boarding was used and it is quickly becoming apparent that this was used as a way to get captured indiiduals to say that there were ties between Iraq and Al Qeada which it is also fact there was not.

In WWII General Patton got in more trouble for slapping a soldier than anyone in a position to have ordered this has or probably will be.


We used to treat prisoners like this

http://santafe.com/articles/images/2218.jpg

Well cool, gang. As usual, you all have all the answers. Maybe when I get a degree and those 6-7 figures I can join the "I have all the answers club" too. Lets just hope that whatever happens won't be half assed, but since the government is manned only by incompitence, there is not much hope of that.

Now one has to ask...where do we go from here? I work for the government, so obviously that is NOT for me to have the cognative ability to grasp. If we really want to fully embrace the rule of law approuch, then terrorism needs to be handled as a criminal act, and not an act of war. Crime at least implies due process and the accused will have an advocate, at least in the ideals of a Western justice system. Shira law, well, that might be a different matter....

War on the other hand is about doing whatever it takes to make your enemy to back down. The terrorists are very adept at that and use all the options at their disposal to great effect. We hope we play with the face cards for now, but the enemy has the full deck at their disposal and a few trick cards up their sleeves. To down grade their activities to "crime" would do more to hamstring them and give credibility to criminal proceedings at home but it would do little to mitigate the threat. There has to be teeth. Rome held on to the concept of the rule of law and technology to guide them and they got curb stomped externally by cunning "primatives" and internally by bickering, corruption and incompetence in addition to the notion that "we are better than them so we will win". Well, it got them only so far. The Romans intellectually thought themselves into a box and the primatives figured all they needed to do to win was think outside of it.

In the end, GWOT will itself probably turn out to be a crime. With that, the terrorists will indeed claim victory, as there will be no substance to continue on with what has been proven to be a criminal enterprise. Again that begs.....where do we go from here?

If we really want to fully embrace the rule of law approuch, then terrorism needs to be handled as a criminal act, and not an act of war.

That is *exactly* how the 9/11 attacks should have been handled - as a criminal conspiracy. There were no nation-states involved in this dispute - just rogue criminal organizations, and think how much more cooperation we would have gotten the world over if we'd taken that approach - including from the nations that produced and/or were harboring the 9/11 engineers. Instead, we had to pervert the rule of law and declare a nebulous 'war' on terror with disingenous and shifting objectives, violate the sovereignty of two nations, generate massive amounts of resentment and pushback in the Middle East, grievously damage our reputation worldwide, and in short do orders of magnitude more damage both to ourselves and to world stability than we would have if we had 1) taken a law enforcement approach or 2) done nothing at all. This should never have been a war, much less two, in the first place, and we're going to be reaping the painful fruits of what we've sown in the Middle East and at home for a long time.

The 'war vs law enforcement' approach, is, however, tangential to the meat of the issue we're facing, which is how and why there techniques were 'justified', authorized and perpetrated in the first place, given that we knew they were illegal even under the umbrella of war operations. That is why we need a truth commission, and while I understand Obama's wish not to let so many things, so much energy, he wishes to devote to issues of the economy, health care, etc, get bogged down and swallowed by the torture issue, the fact is that it will happen whether he does anything or not, and it will be his, and the country's, reputation that suffers if we do not address this. Other than that, where we go from here is we try to provide whatever support we can to Pakistan's effort to make sure *that* regime doesn't collapse, and try to cut our losses otherwise...

Regards,
Nydia

Investigating crime has a hitch, and that is the issue of Juristiction. International crime investigations center on cooperative agreements between governments and their law enforcement branches. In the case of Afghanistan, there was no agreement as no one officially recognised the Taliban government. Iraq...well, let not go there. That left the military invasion options or the do nothing at all option. After 9/11, the public was screaming for blood. To do nothing would be political suicide. To have done a bit more precision planning would have been the better option. Instead we got the modern day crusade.

Now with Pakistan, its doubtful that the West is putting the Pakistani people first and if they did not have nukes then no one would be vastly concerned. At least not as concerned as we are now. If those nukes got compromised, then the military option would be the only option. That would be a very straight forward case. The funny thing is though, one person with a well placed crafted bio-terror virus could kill millions and it would not be a case where we could just bomb the country that harbored the enterprise as was the MO for Afghanistan, since that could be home grown right here in the US. It would be considered a "crime", only one where it was several million counts of murder as opposed to tens of thousands and the actual perp could die from his or her own weapon or off themself before any chance of justice.

The idiot Hasselback is stupid enough to argue with a former Navy SEAL about waterboarding and tortrure...does republican retardation have any limits?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/18/ventura-and-hasselbeck-de_n_204774.html


Best line of the whole thing from Ventura, "You give me Dick Cheney, a waterboard, and one hour, and I'll have him confessing to the Sharon Tate murders."

Yeah JTB has kind of changed my mind about it a bit.

PeMuDN9Ewyc

He called Obama "Osama Bin Laden" at 5:00.

I was listening to the radio the other day and was flipping stations, and Michael savage was on. I listened to him for about 10min. He started comparing himself to the biblical prophets. Saying he was a descendant of them, and how he was the prophet of the future. Savage, Hannity, and Limbaugh, are all banana's.

He called Obama "Osama Bin Laden" at 5:00.

Pretty sure he was referring to all the Obama Bin Laden crap from the campaign.

He called Obama "Osama Bin Laden" at 5:00.

They had repeated OBL's name so often to that point I'm not surprised. And wow, Hannity is just unwatchable. Might as well go to a bar and get drunk for that level of discourse.

Republican Radio Host, who said it is just pouring water on people, Gets Waterboarded...he lasts all of 3 seconds...asshole

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And His reaction...


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