Pelosi or Cheney? Who's the Torturer in Chief?

posted by Laura Flanders on 05/19/2009 @ 09:26am

Email
Print
Share
- Buzzflash
- del.icio.us
- Digg
- Facebook
- Mixx it!
- Reddit
What is this?
Take Action
Comments (176)

Subscribe Now

Beltway journalists seem finally to have a found a torture story they like. Mind you, not the one about the Bush/Cheney White House possibly okaying drowning to extract "information" to justify an Iraq attack -- not that story. The story the Beltway bulldogs have decided to get stuck into is a story about Democrats.

Let's recap. Prosecutions of members of the Bush/Cheney administration became a real possibility last month. As part of an ongoing court case, the Department of Justice released memos detailing techniques approved for use on terror suspects. CIA interrogators were given legal authorization to use water torture, to slam an alleged "high-value" detainee's head against a wall, to place insects inside a "confinement box" to induce fear, and force a detainee to remain awake for 11 consecutive days. All that, according to a memo signed by the former head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), Jay Bybee, now a federal judge.

Subsequent reports including commentary by an FBI interrogator who interrogated one of the same suspects by traditional -- non-torture -- means, suggests that even knowing (as most interrogators did) that torture produces untrustworthy evidence (because torture victims make things up to make the torture stop), officials at the highest level in the Bush/Cheney administration okayed torture tactics.

Did they order abuse specifically to extract an Al Qaeda/ Saddam Hussein link? Maybe. But we'll never know, because instead of even asking the question, the headline story in the media has become: "Nancy Pelosi is a hypocrite."

"Pelosi a hypocrite" vs. "Cheney okayed torture for political reasons:" It seems easy to pick the hotter scoop. Yet David Gregory (of Meet the Press) was all over Pelosi, as were the rest of the Sunday squawkers this weekend. On Fox News they talk about almost nothing else. Why didn't the House speaker push back harder? When did she actually know what? Was she right to hold a press conference blaming the CIA? They're not bad questions. They're important questions. But when it comes to torture, is Pelosi the thorn or the point?

"This is not where the White House wants the public discussion to be," Gregory said on Morning Joe. Too right. But it's bigger than that. On this question of torture-for-war or Pelosi political mis-step, it's not just the White House that wants a different conversation. It's America. We need accountability for torture -- and prosecutions -- if we don't want heinous practices to continue. And we need a press that grasps, not avoids, the serious questions. Scrutinize Pelosi all you like -- but right after Cheney's shut up and Bybee's off the bench.

Laura Flanders is the host of GRITtv which broadcasts weekdays on Free Speech TV (Dish Network Ch. 9415) on cable (8 pm ET on Channel 67 in Manhattan and other cities) and online daily at GRITtv.org and TheNation.com.

Comments (176)

E.J. Dionne made an interesting point on NPR last week.

He noted that the more the Right continue to harp on Pelosi and "what she knew and when", then the obvious questions about what BUSH and CHENEY not only knew and when, but what they authorized.

And that's somewhere the GOP doesn't want to go.

A bet? That as they start to realize that, the Marching Orders from Fox News, Limbaugh, Weekly Standard switch to "some new thing" and the "Pelosi-gate" gets dropped...before it spins into something they can't control.

Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 09:39am
Hands down, neither Pelosi or Cheney, it's.........Jack Bauer!

Last night, I watched the season finale (2-hour) of 24. This is the first full season I watched it, and other than missing it on 2 Monday nights, it was the only regularly scheduled non-sport program I scheduled my activities around to watch.

OK, I'm plugging for the show, for free, really!

There is an article today that mentions 24 is more popular than ever, very countervailing the typical long-running serials.......hmmmm......wonder if the Libs are secret Fox shareholders?

Posted by Happy at 05/19/2009 @ 09:46am
Pelosi didn't okay torture, she didn't have that authority.

But she knew.

So? So did anyone else who was paying attention, it didn't take a personal briefing from the CIA to figure out the US was torturing. And that torture only yields the words the torturers want to hear, the words that justify whatever policy they're putting into effect. Like illegitimate war. Or in the case of the USSR or the 3rd Reich, for example, the illegitmate exercise of totalitarian power.

Posted by sloper at 05/19/2009 @ 09:49am
Is there anyone who believe some form of torture or in our own legalese (unique among nations?), enhanced interrogation, is not used everywhere?

IF you do, I assure you, you are on every marketer and scammer's list!

Posted by Happy at 05/19/2009 @ 09:56am
Before Lefties deride me as `endorsing' torture, I would respond that if my own family is involved, you got that right! Otherwise, it's just an acceptance of the world as it is, not the one you (or anyone else) will never get.

Posted by Happy at 05/19/2009 @ 09:59am
For information on this topic, contact your local priest regarding the Catholic teachings on sins of commission and omission. It pretty much defines the problem here.

Posted by Happy at 05/19/2009 @ 09:59am

We know you endorse torture Happy. The only time you don't endorse it is when those enhanced techniques are used in your neighborhood, possibly on your family. Further, the empirical evidence suggests that places where torture is conducted as a policy are not places people want to live. That's the REAL world, not the fantasy of Jack Bauer's world.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/19/2009 @ 10:04am
......places where torture is conducted as a policy are not places people want to live. That's the REAL world, not the fantasy of Jack Bauer's world.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/19/2009 @ 10:04am

You have the typical illusion of the Leftists.....

No one is advocating a "policy" or torture....just as no religion (since you brought it up) advocate torture, abortion or infanticide.

Policies, nor religious doctrines, do not change human nature at its most stressed state of mind.

You have no children and while I'm sure you have some experience.....do you know the extent families break their own "policies". What's the Obama/Notre Dame controversies are about, at multiple levels?

Get real.....as today, we hope California will as it votes!

Posted by Happy at 05/19/2009 @ 10:17am
1. its a "gotcha moment" for the GOP. they are going to push it for all its worth. they also know they are full of shit. never stopped them in the past, but they no longer have the teeth they had, so...they will sqwauk mightily.

2. although not one to go here often, conservative republican males and more than an occasional dem seem to have a mysogynistic and irrational hatred of ms. pelosi that defies reason. nothing to get red blooded, red faced, propaganda spewers hoppin' mad like saying the words "NANCY PELOSI. NANCY PELOSI. NANCY PELOSI"

these three words, mouthed angrily and derisively and repetitively seem to cascade from the pie holes of the right (and the left at times) like water over niagra falls...

Posted by ibbleblibble at 05/19/2009 @ 10:20am
BTW, srj, I very much WOULD consider moving to places that conduct MORE torture, be it by policy or not!

Having lived in Taiwan as a youngster, either there (again) or mainland China, are high on our list for a few years of pre-Medicare-elgible retirement living!

Posted by Happy at 05/19/2009 @ 10:22am
Bybee should be removed from office, prosecuted, and incarcerated in a federal penitentiary for the rest of his natural life with no hope of parole.

Posted by syfriendly at 05/19/2009 @ 10:38am
Bybee should be removed from office, prosecuted, and incarcerated in a federal penitentiary for the rest of his natural life with no hope of parole.

Posted by syfriendly at 05/19/2009 @ 10:38am

Really? For violating what law?

Please enlighten us with the criminal code for offering legal opinions?

Posted by antisocialist at 05/19/2009 @ 10:52am
Damn Liberal Media!

Posted by Extraneous at 05/19/2009 @ 11:15am
Posted by Happy at 05/19/2009 @ 09:56am

"Everybody does it!!!!"

(HAPP obviously never had kids in middle school, huh?....LOL)

Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 11:24am
Lets assume Pelosi was briefed on the methods the Bush Cheney team was using. She was also told by them that their legal counsel said that water boarding did not constitute torture. What would her options have been if she had ethical/legal concerns? What ever she was told was from a highly classified source, does she breach her security clearance and go to the media? What legal actions could she have taken? If she had gone to the media, she would have been both accused of being a traitor and potentially jail for revealing state secrets. She did not have the authority to stop it. What would the right have wanted her to do to avoid being a hypocrite? Just wondering.

Posted by Extraneous at 05/19/2009 @ 11:26am
these three words, mouthed angrily and derisively and repetitively seem to cascade from the pie holes of the right (and the left at times) like water over niagra falls...

Posted by ibbleblibble at 05/19/2009 @ 10:20am | ignore this person | warn this person

uh...two words, repeated thrice...

the worst torture in the world is hearing some mysoginist repeating the words "NANCY PELOSI" ad nauseum.

clockwork orangesque in a way...

Posted by ibbleblibble at 05/19/2009 @ 11:36am
Why would anyone care about Pelosi?

She wasn't the architect of the policy. It's possible that she's a liar, but for heavens sake she's a politician. They are professionals.

Sure, if she's at fault, give her the boot.

But Bush, Cheney, Yoo, and Rumsfield need to walk the plank first, definitely.

Pelosi is just a convenient shield. The architects first, the henchmen second, the enablers after that. Seems fair to me.

Posted by ficheye at 05/19/2009 @ 11:37am
It is a quite humorous spin from the Right-

"Pelosi knew! She knew too that...er...uh...nothing illegal was happening! She's just as guilty of...uh....er...nothing, as Bush and Cheney are!"

You can't write high comedy like THAT!

Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 11:42am
Its clear Pelosi is a genuine "DOG" which clearly is how the Obamanation admin. charactorizes women for whom they have no respect!

Posted by comancheamerican at 05/19/2009 @ 11:54am
Posted by Happy at 05/19/2009 @ 10:22am

We outsource our torture to places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Djibouti. Find any of those places appealing Happy?

As for China, how does that assumption work if you left without any of your current assets and had to live like an ordinary Chinese? That work for you, Happy?

That's the problem with cherry-pickin' to support your absurd points, Happy. It doesn't pass the "Let's keep it real" check you've been talking so much about.

Posted by antisocialist at 05/19/2009 @ 10:52a

I'm not a lawyer, but I suspect a not terribly creative one could write and indictment of Joe Bybee, under U.S. Code, Title 18, Part I, Chapter 113C, Section 2340A(c), Conspiracy to commit torture.

I cannot comment on the legal precedents for such a case, but you definitely cannot argue that the law is not there.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/19/2009 @ 12:05pm
"No one is advocating a "policy" or torture"

(quote of the day)

it's truly amazing how people can say things which are so blatantly false.

"Really? For violating what law?"

you can't write legal opinions, in secret, "authorizing" illegal torture techniques.

there is a growing chorus of lawyers who are asking for bybee to be disbarred.

Posted by darladoon at 05/19/2009 @ 12:15pm
"Its clear Pelosi is a genuine "DOG" which clearly is how the Obamanation admin. charactorizes women for whom they have no respect!"

does anyone have any idea what comancheamerican's problem is?

Posted by darladoon at 05/19/2009 @ 12:16pm
does anyone have any idea what comancheamerican's problem is?---Posted by darladoon at 05/19/2009 @ 12:16pm

Generally? He's an old man who's seen his imagined idyll world collapse around him over his life-time. Likely linking his own personal failures and the blunting of his personal bigotries against ...well, just about everybody not white, male, fundey/evangey Christian even Okie....to external forces, primarily the "Demoncrat Party" and "lib'ruls", but that's merely a caraciture of a society in general which has passed him by.

He's bitter, angry, frustrated. Archie Bunker incarnate, though even some 30 years past when most of the "Bunkers" have given up and resigned themselves.

And flailing about (with a dash of un-attributed Cut & Pastes) on a liberal blog is the last "great fight" of his life, even if it wins no converts and few of those who would be political allies link themselves to him, because of his rants and vitrole.

If he wasn't such a sphincter, I'd feel sorry for him....LOL

Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 12:31pm
"Is there anyone who believe some form of torture or in our own legalese (unique among nations?), enhanced interrogation, is not used everywhere?"

yet another in a long, long line of people who simply don't get it.

let me spell it out for y'all: whether other countries might torture doesn't make torture legal!

torture is illegal. no matter who does it, why they do it, or when they do it.

Posted by darladoon at 05/19/2009 @ 12:38pm
I'm not a lawyer, but I suspect a not terribly creative one could write and indictment of Joe Bybee, under U.S. Code, Title 18, Part I, Chapter 113C, Section 2340A(c), Conspiracy to commit torture.

I cannot comment on the legal precedents for such a case, but you definitely cannot argue that the law is not there.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/19/2009 @ 12:05pm

I'm also not a lawyer, but I have successfully represented myself in 2 civil ligations against me (either lucky or good, it doesn't matter, I won).

I believe the difficulty Holder's office sees is the language of the code. As shown below, it says that there was specific intention to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering).

If you read the Bybee memo, it is specific about intent, and the need to define techniques that will not cross that line. It also notes the vagueness of the term severe and then references case precedence to establish guidelines.

<"torture" means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;>

http://uscode.house.gov/download/pls/18C113C.txt

Posted by antisocialist at 05/19/2009 @ 1:39pm
Its clear Pelosi is a genuine "DOG" which clearly is how the Obamanation admin. charactorizes women for whom they have no respect!

Posted by comancheamerican at 05/19/2009 @ 11:54am | ignore this person | warn this person

Maybe this will help the confused ignorant!

"David Axelrod, senior adviser to President Obama, added to the criticisms of Miss California USA Carrie Prejean during the weekend. But instead of merely giving her grief for opposing same-sex marriage, he basically called her a dog.

In a largely humorous interview on National Public Radio's "Wait, Wait . . . Don't Tell Me!" show, Axelrod was asked how involved he was in the Obama family's selection of its dog, Bo.

He quipped that he "only got called in for the final three," The New York Times reports.

But while Axelrod got serious for a moment, telling listeners he didn't take part in the dog decision, show host Peter Sagal asked for information about the other two contestants.

"One was Miss California," Axelrod cracked, as the audience laughed. "

Only the highest standards of charactor are presented by this so-called Presidency!

Posted by comancheamerican at 05/19/2009 @ 1:47pm
I'm also not a lawyer, but I have successfully represented myself in 2 civil ligations against me (either lucky or good, it doesn't matter, I won).--------Posted by antisocialist at 05/19/2009 @ 1:39pm

Curious. Comparing the four, Larry, which was tougher-

A. Your 2 civil litigations?

B. Battling demons and witches?

C. Secret ops (outside of SE Asia) in the 60s?

D. Rising from the dead?

Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 1:48pm
Odd how our "civil servants" at the federal level are all still liars after having turned over a list of "FORTY" different briefings attended by these Demoncrats in congress who are now accussing the civil servants of lieing! Isn't the CIA now headed by Obamanations man?

Sorta reminds us of Bill and Hillarys "I don't recall, I don't remember" testimonies before long "misplaced" files mysteriously turn up in the White House months later?!

Posted by comancheamerican at 05/19/2009 @ 2:04pm
"demoncrats" if only there was an antonym for the word "clever"...

Posted by A.D.H.D. at 05/19/2009 @ 2:20pm
"... our own legalese (unique among nations?), enhanced interrogation ..."

Not unique. The 3rd Reich used a similar phrase.

Feel better about it now?

Posted by sloper at 05/19/2009 @ 2:25pm
Posted by antisocialist at 05/19/2009 @ 1:39pm

Conspiracy is the general, "let's throw them under a bus" clause in the U.S. Code. I don't think there is any legal problem with bringing this kind of case, you would simply need to define severe physical or mental pain or suffering means now, in case law or meant at the time of statute (if you are an originalist).

If the legal opinion is bad, the judge and jury can still come along and say you broke the law. Your lawyer might tell you that something isn't really stealing, but when you get caught, he can still be put in jail for conspiracy. Same applies here.

The only real obstacle is political, which is why a case like this will never happen - or at least until most of the people involved are long dead.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/19/2009 @ 2:34pm
Curious. Comparing the four, Larry, which was tougher-

A. Your 2 civil litigations?

B. Battling demons and witches?

C. Secret ops (outside of SE Asia) in the 60s?

D. Rising from the dead?

Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 1:48pm

Well D didn't involve anything on my part. That was completely G-d's action

B was mostly G-d's power with my biggest contribution being willing to serve and to overcome my own human fears and respond in faith to what Jesus said we had power to do in His name.

that leaves A & C. Like most people I don't like courts. I wasn't comfortable in that environment and feel that simply believing in myself and my ability to speak honestly to the law in those cases was both simple and intimidating (in that environment).

I think that leaves C. When you go into situations where you know your life is at risk, it is simultaneously an adrenaline rush of both fear and excitement. But there is also a recognition that there are elements at play that are out of your hands and therefore, it makes it by far the most difficult.

Posted by antisocialist at 05/19/2009 @ 2:34pm
But while Axelrod got serious for a moment, telling listeners he didn't take part in the dog decision, show host Peter Sagal asked for information about the other two contestants.

"One was Miss California," Axelrod cracked, as the audience laughed. "

Only the highest standards of charactor are presented by this so-called Presidency!

Posted by comancheamerican at 05/19/2009 @ 1:47pm

Wow, that showed us ignorant ones. WTF! does this have to do with anything? Your just babbling nonsense! Some sort of politcal turrets.

Posted by Extraneous at 05/19/2009 @ 2:39pm
Posted by antisocialist at 05/19/2009 @ 2:34pm

Okay, just checking.

Gotta go pop off a letter to my nephew Wormwood now....heheh

Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 2:48pm
Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 2:48pm

Funny!

Posted by freiheit1 at 05/19/2009 @ 2:54pm
Posted by freiheit1 at 05/19/2009 @ 2:54pm

I'm advising my other nephew Slimeknot who has you as a "patient", FREI...

more "Federal Reserve Chairmen under your bed" fear and loathing to turn you away from the Enemy.

Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 3:04pm
Neither one is a torturer in chief. Cheney is straight forward and honest - you know exactly where he stands. Pelosi is just a two-bit hypocrite.

Posted by pyeatte at 05/19/2009 @ 3:05pm
Neither one is a torturer in chief. Cheney is straight forward and honest - you know exactly where he stands.---Posted by pyeatte at 05/19/2009 @ 3:05pm

We've finished our work with Cheney....we expect a DELICIOUS banquet soon.

Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 3:08pm
#

Its clear Pelosi is a genuine "DOG" which clearly is how the Obamanation admin. charactorizes women for whom they have no respect!

Posted by comancheamerican at 05/19/2009 @ 11:54am | ignore this person | warn this person

in that its YOU, i'm sure that's a jab at "obamanation", but i still can't figger it out...

lol...

keep 'em coming!!!

Posted by ibbleblibble at 05/19/2009 @ 3:20pm
Posted by ibbleblibble at 05/19/2009 @ 3:20pm

You don't think RIO would ever recognize his own hypocrisy, do you, IBB???

He's the same guy who spews hateful vitriole and rants...

and then accuses every "Nation" writer of "spewing hateful vitriole and rants"!

LOL

Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 3:25pm
does anyone have any idea what comancheamerican's problem is?

Posted by darladoon at 05/19/2009 @ 12:16pm

ya, he's an ahole to the nth degree.

Posted by Wolfgang1 at 05/19/2009 @ 3:27pm
Hey remember cHeney said the VPOTUS wasn't really part of the executive, nor really the legislative branch... he must'a been giving us a clue even back then, but why of course-- cHeney was always part of the Tortured Extremity.

Get it-- branch - limb - extremity - extremist... tortured logic.

Posted by hsuBfools at 05/19/2009 @ 3:29pm
Cheney is straight forward and honest - you know exactly where he stands. Pelosi is just a two-bit hypocrite.

Posted by pyeatte at 05/19/2009 @ 3:05pm

"In Iraq, a ruthless dictator cultivated weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them. He gave support to terrorists, had an established relationship with al Qaeda, and his regime is no more." – Dick Cheney, Nov. 7, 2003

Straight forward and lying...

Posted by Extraneous at 05/19/2009 @ 3:30pm
Ok ,I know I can do better...

Posted by hsuBfools at 05/19/2009 @ 3:32pm
The worst thing I can say about Pelosi is I was and still am torqued off at her for saying impeachment was off the table. Even though she didn't have a prayers chance in hell of even getting the process started, she never should have said that.

On to Cheney now. He acts like he was this protective tough guy making the tough call to protect us weak Americans. This is the same lame us coward who had 5 deferments during the Vietnam war. Oh ya, Cheney's gonna keep us safe. The same Cheney who's Halliburton subsidiary hired unqualifed electricians to wire up the barracks for soldiers who were promptly electrocuted in their showers.

The rethugs don't have one credible person to turn to because so many of them have been lying the party line for so long they don't know what else to do. The republican party has become the party of cowards, liars and most certainly felons.

Posted by Wolfgang1 at 05/19/2009 @ 3:35pm
Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 3:04pm

Well, at least you read the book Mask.

But really, I wish you would stop painting me as some paranoid conspiracy freak regarding the Fed. I will repeat, there is no conspiracy surrounding the Fed and what it really is. It is more of a "don't ask, don't tell" situation.

I'm bemused by people who would pull a muscle ranting over a perceived oil monopoly, or transportation monopoly, or technology monopoly, yet have no comprehension that our entire monetary system is a government protected cartel.

And I'm not living a life in fear. Quite the contrary, there is exquisite peace in truth.

Slimeknot works on me every hour of the day. I hope he's frustrated.

Posted by freiheit1 at 05/19/2009 @ 3:54pm
LOL

Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 3:25pm | ignore this person | warn this person

hey...from the king of bizarre, misspelled, rantage here...but...

that as the physics professor said of his student's incomprehensible paper...

"that's not even WRONG!"

Posted by ibbleblibble at 05/19/2009 @ 4:01pm
Cheney is straight forward and honest - you know exactly where he stands. Pelosi is just a two-bit hypocrite. Posted by pyeatte at 05/19/2009 @ 3:05pm

I imagine that you wrote this with a straight face. But she hasn't broken any laws. Bush and Cheney broke the law by misrepresenting the reasons for going into Iraq.

Nancy was in the same room as many, many republicans when the CIA briefed them on 'torture' techniques. All those other folks are also guilty of whatever Pelosi is being crucified for.

I'd laugh, but I just got botoxed!

Posted by ficheye at 05/19/2009 @ 4:21pm
What is in our faces and ears on a daily/nightly basis from almost every major news outlet is proof - that our media is objectively corrupted. In further relation, my recent HuffingtonPost comment: To expand upon something which is primarily left out of the public discourse, the torturous acts, like waterboarding, are most often discussed or referred to in the singular aspect - such as "he was waterboarded 183 times in 30 days." What is left out is crucially important for a clearer view of the greater picture. The torture practices were most often cumulative - and combined. Imagine the difference (& escalation) of outraged reactions were people to be presented with a fuller picture of those 30 days. For 11 days (at a time - get it?), this person would also be deprived of sleep, experience ongoing "Torture By Music," be broken by constant stress positions, endure extreme temperatures (back and forth), be slammed into walls (over and over), get confined to boxes (with insects) for hours at a time, have his senses deprived (in various other fashions), and have his diet manipulated so that he could not even enjoy having a meal. All of the latter, and much more (straight out of the Dark Ages) - while being waterboarded Six Times a Day. If that person was not insane before, do you think he might be after? Would he, innocent or guilty, be willing to say anything - maybe even recite pre-written propaganda points/plots to be used in the media at a later time? Would he, innocent or guilty, ever be able to recover, not just from thirty days of this - but from years of it? These were War Crimes. The people deserve a complete picture. Moreover, the world awaits Justice. www.SeaClearly.com

Posted by SeaClearly at 05/19/2009 @ 4:26pm
Wow, that showed us ignorant ones. WTF! does this have to do with anything? Your just babbling nonsense! Some sort of politcal turrets.

Posted by Extraneous at 05/19/2009 @ 2:39pm | ignore this person | warn this person

Try reading the entire thread before posting so as NOT to look a complete fool!

Posted by comancheamerican at 05/19/2009 @ 4:31pm
. The republican party has become the party of cowards, liars and most certainly felons.

Posted by Wolfgang1 at 05/19/2009 @ 3:35pm | ignore this person | warn this person

Try research, it more than 50-50 against the Demoncrats!

Posted by comancheamerican at 05/19/2009 @ 4:33pm
Try reading the entire thread before posting so as NOT to look a complete fool!

Posted by comancheamerican at 05/19/2009 @ 4:31pm

I have followed the entire thread and sorry but your posts are still incomprehensible babble.

Let me try to decipher. 1) We are all ignorant because we missed "wait wait don't tell me" over the weekend - huh? 2) Pelosi is a dog because Axelrod on NPR comedy show made a lame joke about a Miss America runner up, inferring that she was also a runner up for Obama family dog. - again, Huh? 3) Because of the joke the standards of charact(e)r of the Obama administration is lowered. - WTF dude? you make no sense at all and your posts have nothing to do with reality. There is a stark absence of logic in your posts and you likely need psychiatric help. It really seems like you have some form of turrets where your compelled to spew angry political babble.

Posted by Extraneous at 05/19/2009 @ 5:16pm
Torture is not the way to facilitate cooperation with other countries. The U.S. should focus more on soft power and increase the strategic foreign aid. The Borgen Project has good info on the estimated cost of ending global poverty:

$30 billion: Annual shortfall to end world hunger.

$550 billion: U.S. Defense budget.

Posted by davidwaters at 05/19/2009 @ 5:44pm
Posted by freiheit1 at 05/19/2009 @ 3:54pm

Look for the "fnords" in the last speech by Bernacke!!!!!

Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 6:19pm
Odd how our "civil servants" at the federal level are all still liars after having turned over a list of "FORTY" different briefings attended by these Demoncrats in congress who are now accussing the civil servants of lieing! Isn't the CIA now headed by Obamanations man?

Posted by comancheamerican at 05/19/2009

Dude...I've worked in government a very long time and it's no problem at all to create fake meeting agendas and even falsify asttendance rosters. Especially after-the-fact, five years later. I've seen it done many times. Who really knows what was said exactly, the "tone" taht was used or who was there after that long? I certainly can't and neither can you.

Come on! This is the real world.

Posted by Desert Son at 05/19/2009 @ 6:30pm
This is the CIA for goodness sakes! They're pros at doing the fake information thing!

Posted by Desert Son at 05/19/2009 @ 6:33pm
2. although not one to go here often, conservative republican males and more than an occasional dem seem to have a mysogynistic and irrational hatred of ms. pelosi that defies reason. nothing to get red blooded, red faced, propaganda spewers hoppin' mad like saying the words "NANCY PELOSI. NANCY PELOSI. NANCY PELOSI"

Posted by ibbleblibble at 05/19/2009 @ 10:20am

Bubba says, "Yo, Ibble...it's cuz she's a lib'rul from San Francisco where they keep all them homos and commies. And she's a girl...prob'ly a lesbo. And not a hot one, either."

And BTW, most of what the right wing spews nowadays defies "reason."

Don't get me wrong, I think there's something to be said about Ms. Pelosi's style. A little strident if you ask me. However, she's a woman in a man's world and I applaud her for standing firm, even if it does come off as strident sometimes.

But the whole crazy "OMG! Nancy Pelosi knew about the torture and did nothing!" argument really smacks it in the face of the people on the right who said it wasn't torture to begin with.... I think she'll ride this one out. Some roughness ahead, but I think she'll handle it well. The fact she came out and said, "Prove it" to the CIA says something.

Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 05/19/2009 @ 6:57pm
I find it amazing that anyone offers anything complimentary about Pelosi. She's been the same far left disgrace to Congress since she arrived there.

Like most leftist Democrats in govt, lying is standard procedure. I would never believe anything she says.

I'm not one calling for hearings or saying she should resign. I think it's good to keep someone like that as the face of the Democrats. It reminds decent Americans why this battle for Congress and the White House is so critical to the nation's future.

Posted by antisocialist at 05/19/2009 @ 7:13pm
Posted by Mask at 05/19/2009 @ 3:08pm :

You may have to wait a very long time....ie never.

Posted by pyeatte at 05/19/2009 @ 8:54pm
My current subscription to the Nation will be the last. You've become little more than a mouthpiece for the Democratic party.

Anybody with half a brain should be able to see that the republicans & democrats are two halves of the same coin. The people that own the republicans also own the democrats. No true change or meaningful change will ever come from either of those parties.

The idiotic argument that you have to vote for the lesser of two evils may sway the majority but they forget that the lesser evil is still evil.

In regards to Ms. Pelosi let her hang along with the Bush thugs. Her silence makes her complicit in their crimes.

I doubt I'm the only one that believes 'impeachment is off the table' was done to protect her ass.

She didn't want no stinkin' investigation!

Posted by cjines at 05/19/2009 @ 9:22pm
Like most leftist Democrats in govt, lying is standard procedure.

Posted by antisocialist at 05/19/2009 @ 7:13pm

I believe that lying is a grand tradition practiced by many politicians. Take these little gems, for instance....

............................

"We found the weapons of mass destruction."

"It's time to restore honor and dignity to the White House."

"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

"I first got to know Ken [Lay in 1994]."

"[We are] taking every possible step to protect our country from danger."

"We must uncover every detail and learn every lesson of September the 11th."

"My plan unlocks the door to the middle class of millions of hard-working Americans."

"I'm a uniter not a divider."

"I have been very candid about my past."

.................

Every one of these statements by the champion of democracy, George W. Bush, has been shown to either be a lie, an obfuscation, a stretching of the truth, or just a plain fantasy. Nancy Pelosi just learned from one of the morons... er... MASTERS of the art of truth dodging. Amen.

Posted by ficheye at 05/19/2009 @ 9:44pm
The senate vote today not to fund the prisoner relocation by democrats, indicates that the stench of moral decay and human rites violations is much wider and more corrupting than we previously knew. Our political system has been so corrupted that we have gone beyond the tipping point of ever seeing a return to democracy as our fathers intended to leave us as a legacy. Justice is now only a concept available to the gluttonous few behind the walls of their gated communities.

Posted by julien38 at 05/19/2009 @ 10:24pm
I find it amazing that anyone offers anything complimentary about Pelosi. She's been the same far left disgrace to Congress since she arrived there.

Like most leftist Democrats in govt, lying is standard procedure. I would never believe anything she says.

I'm not one calling for hearings or saying she should resign. I think it's good to keep someone like that as the face of the Democrats. It reminds decent Americans why this battle for Congress and the White House is so critical to the nation's future.

Posted by antisocialist at 05/19/2009 @ 7:13pm

Are you really telling me that right wing politicians don't lie Anti? It doesn't matter if you are a Democrat or the most conservative right winger, lying is standard if you are a politician and if you don't agree with that then you are naive fool.

Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/19/2009 @ 10:34pm
It reminds decent Americans why this battle for Congress and the White House is so critical to the nation's future.

Posted by antisocialist at 05/19/2009 @ 7:13pm

Guess there aren't many "decent" Americans because you guys are losing bad.

Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/19/2009 @ 10:36pm
It reminds decent Americans why this battle for Congress and the White House is so critical to the nation's future.

Posted by antisocialist at 05/19/2009 @ 7:13pm

It's funny that you are arrogant enough to believe the only people who are "decent" in this country are the ones that agree with you.

Posted by Cccomfo1 at 05/19/2009 @ 11:24pm
Send the Rangers! Obama, please - let them do everything they need to extract Aung San Suu Kyi .

One shouldn't hate, but I do. I hate that corrupt, oppressive regime. Make room at Gitmo, get those Tribunals ready for those 'Myanmar' worm jism, Cheney, and Malosovitch.

Posted by winyahn at 05/19/2009 @ 11:46pm
Transcripts need to be released and then everyone will know the Bush-Cheney Junta for what they really are...Criminals.

If there is info that needs to be classified, then redact it out. It's only necessary to hear the questions to determine if they were trying to induce a link between Saddam and Al-Queda.

According to the "'24' version of torture" enthusiasts, this wouldn't be a justifiable situation to torture a prisoner.

Regardless, weren't Bush et al...constantly using weird euphemisms and qualifying definitions to obfuscate? How was Pelosi really supposed to know the truth?

Posted by koroviev at 05/20/2009 @ 03:59am
Come on! This is the real world.

Posted by Desert Son at 05/19/2009 @ 6:30pm | ignore this person | warn this person

This is the CIA for goodness sakes! They're pros at doing the fake information thing!

Posted by Desert Son at 05/19/2009 @ 6:33pm | ignore this person | warn this person

======

This is what is so funny about the nation, do you ever really think about what you just said? How do you know that all the lies against the Bush admin. are not all MANUFACTORED by the Demoncrats and their bureaucratic enablers 90% of whom always have worked FOR the federal government?

This is part and parcel of the ignorance of posters here. Never believe what actually comes out of the mouth of those you support!

Posted by comancheamerican at 05/20/2009 @ 04:18am
If Nancy Pelosi believed that waterboarding was justified in 2002 -- just like Porter Goss, President Bush, Vice President Cheney and CIA Director Tenet -- then a policy of selectively using enhanced interrogation techniques in carefully circumscribed ways in order to prevent future attacks -- in other words, the Bush Administration policy -- is vindicated.

But rather than admit that President Bush, when faced with an array of difficult choices, made the hard choice that kept the nation safe, Nancy Pelosi has instead retreated into the cheap sanctity of ignorance. She didn't know, so she claims. That's why she didn't do anything about it.

But President Bush did know. It was his job to know, and he made the tough choices needed to save American lives.

It was Nancy Pelosi's job to know too. But to avoid culpability for the choices she supported, she's now telling us she didn't know. And she's calling the intelligence officials who say otherwise liars and criminals.

If the CIA has reported to congress information and records of FORTY meetings attended by Demoncrat congresspersons that is inaccurate or a lie they are subject to criminal charges under federal law!

Posted by comancheamerican at 05/20/2009 @ 04:32am
Why all the whining? We knew Bush and Cheney were torturing for years and we didn't run screaming into the streets, we weren't allowed. We were still under the color coded Bush terror alerts and being told we weren't "good Americans if we questioned his ah "thinking".. Pelosi says she didn't know they were torturing and I believe her. The CIA has lied for decades and we all know they break rules, always have always will, they also begin wars for corporate profit and other wise live by their own rules. They haven't proven Nancy knew a thing and they're brazen enough to assume it won't matter and they're right. It's not like the CIA is going to lose control over us. They know the GOP only has to cast doubt and they "may win". Let's do a full investigation and out them all. Prosecute Bush and Cheney for war crimes, crimes against humanity and murdering over 3000 Americans by not protecting us on 9/11 and then killing another 4000 in a war that was and is a lie. This are bigger issues then if Nancy knew and when. This wasn't the first attack on NY and we all have forgotten this fact. Bush didn't save us from the 2nd attack and he still is trying to change history with his BS. Let's not let them. Nancy is just another smoke screen in the GOP cover up of their own lies and shame. Leave Nancy alone and clean your own closets. The fact is torture is and was illegal and the entire Bush administration needs to go to jail for it, period.

Posted by ljlu at 05/20/2009 @ 06:47am
Posted by ljlu at 05/20/2009 @ 06:47am | ignore this person | warn this person

YUP

Posted by julien38 at 05/20/2009 @ 07:12am
It seems to me that most everyone here has missed the only significance of Pelosi's position. It should be pretty obvious to the dumbest that Pelosi did not think waterboarding was torture at that time. That is the only issue that matters i.e. she accepted the position of Bush's legal advice that led to his claim that the US does not torture.

That really means in essence that Pelosi as your typical American mom backed waterboarding as an acceptable way of getting information out of two or three terrorists who, one way or another, gave their guts away.

So Pelosi is your typical American who tells us (by her silence then), along with a lot of Americans recently polled that this sort of enhanced interrogation, in that context was OK. Forget the nonsense about her not being responsible for its authorisation. That's not the point. She put a pretty face on the practice.

On the issue of enhanced interrogation producing useless information, it may not have occurred to those who promote that idea, that where names, places and times have been extracted, in a "ticking time bomb" situation these can very readily be checked out. Maybe that is why KSM was waterboarded multiple times. Sort of, "Hey Khalid, we couldn't find Abdul where you said he was. Let's try again". Not much point in KSM bullshitting if waterboarding is torture in any serious sense. It will keep going until he gives up the good oil on Abdul

As it was only in that sort of limited situation that waterboarding was "legalised", extraction of the more general propaganda stuff was necessarily off the waterboarding agenda. Anyway as Bush and Cheney were such "liars" they would have made it up without going to all that trouble. Much the same way you fellas make up your little anti Bush/Cheney stories. That's easy.

Posted by lrjones4 at 05/20/2009 @ 08:02am
How do you know that all the lies against the Bush admin. are not all MANUFACTORED by the Demoncrats and their bureaucratic enablers 90% of whom always have worked FOR the federal government?-----Posted by comancheamerican at 05/20/2009 @ 04:18am

Okay, seriously? I think RIO's wife ran off with a Democratic politician!

heheh

Posted by Mask at 05/20/2009 @ 08:08am
to help happy out: there is torture all around the world. There are also rape and murder all around the world. Still we have laws against rape, murder, and torture. They are illegal and those who practice these crimes--if found guilty before a jury of their peers--are punished.

If there were a situation where I must kill a man to prevent him from killing another, I would pull the trigger fully knowing that I would have to explain my action to a jury and that I would probably be found guilty of murder and placed on death row because I am not a rich man. But I would take that punishment like a man, knowing I had done the right thing.

I am convinced that there is no situation where it is justifiable to torture someone. But if I found myself in a situation where it was absolutely necessary in order to save life and limb, I would do whatever was necessary, knowing that I would be punished for it later. I have not found a situation where torture could improve the odds of another human being surviving intact, but I am always open to the possibility that such a situation might exist. If my explanation to the jury was not adequate to receive their clemency, again, I would take the punishment like a man.

I take responsibility for the things I have done. I don't think it is too much to ask of government officials--elected, appointed, or hired--to do the same.

Posted by gabbyhayes at 05/20/2009 @ 08:10am
The republican party has become the party of cowards, liars and most certainly felons.

Posted by Wolfgang1 at 05/19/2009 @ 3:35pm | ignore this person | warn this person

Try research, it more than 50-50 against the Demoncrats!

Posted by comancheamerican at 05/19/2009 @ 4:33pm

Repubs are only 21% of population not too ashamed enough to still call themselves such-- and it's falling. Uuuhmm, 21 from 100 equals 79... Sounds more like 79% against the repubs-- and growing.

And the only thing Wolf left out, and that coma reminds me of continually, is what also comprises the repub label--- "DELUSIONAL"!

Posted by hsuBfools at 05/20/2009 @ 08:16am
Posted by gabbyhayes at 05/20/2009 @ 08:10am

Pity you don't know the law in your own country:

JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE - That which is committed with the intention to kill or to do a grievous bodily injury, under circumstances which the law holds sufficient to exculpate the person who commits it.

It is justifiable: 1. When a judge or other magistrate acts in obedience to the law; 2. When a ministerial officer acts in obedience to a lawful warrant, issued by a competent tribunal; 3. When a subaltern officer or soldier kills in obedience to the lawful commands of his superior; 4. When the party kills in lawful self-defence.

http://www.lectlaw.com/def/j059.htm

Justifiable homicide

Justifiable homicide is the killing of one person by another that is committed without malice or criminal intent. When a person commits a justifiable homicide they are not guilty of a criminal offense. Homicide can be considered justifiable homicide if it is committed in self defense, the defense of others, while trying to prevent of serious crime, and in the line of duty. Capital punishment is also considered justifiable homicide. Preventing a prisoner from fleeing by means of deadly force may also be considered justifiable homicide.

http://www.criminal-law-lawyer-source.com/terms/justifiable.html

http://www.trosch.org/tro/mpr-7g30.htm

etc, etc, etc.

Now if there is such a thing as Justifiable Killing it seems ludicrous that there should not be justifiable torture, which does not necessarily snuff out the life of the tortured, in the context of preventing (mass) killings.

If it is not "legal" then the law is an ass.

Posted by lrjones4 at 05/20/2009 @ 08:41am
Posted by hsuBfools at 05/20/2009 @ 08:16am

As RIO will no doubtedly tell us...

Arithmetic has a liberal bias, HSUB.

heheh.

(Actually, he'll probably point to the election results, which was closer to 50-50, but 10 million votes for Obama over McCain doesn't help his case either!)

Posted by Mask at 05/20/2009 @ 08:46am
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 05/19/2009 @ 6:57pm | ignore this person | warn this person

yup...

but hey man...THE CIA WOULD NEVER LIE!!!!

LMAO!!!!

poor spooks...i have zero animus toward the agency. i firmly believe that the previous administration set the cia about the business of proving that iraq had wmds, a connection to 9/11, rather than asking them for a good analysis of WHETHER either was true...

which put the cia in a nasty pickle.

then after railroading out those in the agency that refused to go along, demoting and remoting potential trouble makers and finding those who just wanted to keep their jobs or who sympathized with the politics...

the slimey bastard neocon politicions and presidential handlers went back and BLAMED THE CIA FOR FAULTY INTELLIGENCE THEY (THE POLITICIANS) HAD PRESSURED THE AGENCY TO PRODUCE!!!!

so now panetta is in a sticky situation and horrible partisan right rightwing gotcha attack, horrible for its pathos as well as its nature.

Posted by ibbleblibble at 05/20/2009 @ 08:48am
"Cheney is straight forward and honest"

Sorry, Darla, this is the Quote du Jour.

I assume this was written tongue in cheek?

1""The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight."

-Cheney has met Edwards at least three times: at a prayer breakfast in 2001, at Elizabeth Dole's swearing-in ceremony in 2003, and backstage at Meet the Press.

2:"...the 90 percent figure is just dead wrong. When you include the Iraqi security forces that have suffered casualties, as well as the allies, they've taken almost 50 percent of the casualties in operations in Iraq."

-Edwards wasn't "dead wrong." He was dead right. Iraq isn't part of the coalition, and as of Tuesday 1,061 American service members had been killed compared to 136 from non-U.S. coalition forces. That's 88% of all coalition casualties.

3:Following his defense of the interrogation techniques authorized by the administration, Cheney continued: "Did it produce the desired results? I think it did. I think, for example, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was the number three man in al-Qaeda, the man who planned the attacks of 9/11, provided us with a wealth of information. There was a period of time there, three or four years ago, when about half of everything we knew about al-Qaeda came from that one source."

-Although President Bush claimed that KSM had provided "many details of other plots to kill innocent Americans," a former senior CIA official, who read all the interrogation reports from KSM's torture in secret CIA custody, explained that "90 percent of it was total fucking bullshit," and a former Pentagon analyst added, "KSM produced no actionable intelligence. He was trying to tell us how stupid we were."

In addition, Cheney's claims about KSM were directly contradicted by Jack Cloonan

Posted by crabwalk at 05/20/2009 @ 09:14am
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-worthington

/the-ten-lies-of-dick-chen_b_153419.html

---

"Now if there is such a thing as Justifiable Killing it seems ludicrous that there should not be justifiable torture, which does not necessarily snuff out the life of the tortured, in the context of preventing (mass) killings."

But, you cannot show that torture committed by the US or it's surrogates did any such thing as prevent mass killings. Pretty much the whole argument from the pro-torture of kids crowd is based on Cheney/Bush claims that have been disputed by top officials and career interrogators. Also, military personnel are on record stating that these treatments of detainees actually KILLED AMERICANS.

We have been through this a dozen times, not one con has bothered to respond to the FACT that military interrogators were against these policies and found them to be COUNTERPRODUCTIVE. That is, the policies advocated for, and defended by, the Bush supporters actually caused harm to the USA and it's stated goals.But, somehow, they take their counterproductive desires to harm people out of revenge motives and call the anti-torture crowd "traitors" and worse.

This from the same people that are pretty much unwilling to accept that their policies of vengeance have caused millions of people lives to be changed for the worse. Tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands dead, millions displaced and ethnic cleansing were the results of the War in Iraq. Not one WMD was found, terrorism continues unabated worldwide, Usama still roams free, AQ is still around and the cos have yet to pay for a dime of their vengeful war based on lies.

Posted by crabwalk at 05/20/2009 @ 09:25am
The GOP has gone -a-fishin' and come up with a net full of Red Herring.

And we can see that the "liberal media" has let the liberal Pelosi off the hook.

Bzzztt

liberal media.....bzzzz...liberal media.... christians under attack...zzaappp.... wmd's...marxism!!...demons...."no doubt he has reconstituted his nuclear program".... I'm afraid Paw!....defend traditional marriage... Obama is taking my guns....bzzztt....

Posted by crabwalk at 05/20/2009 @ 09:32am
Posted by crabwalk at 05/20/2009 @ 09:32am | ignore this person | warn this person

and oppose the "democrat socialist" party...

Posted by ibbleblibble at 05/20/2009 @ 09:49am
"But President Bush did know. It was his job to know, and he made the tough choices needed to save American lives.

It was Nancy Pelosi's job to know too."

does anyone else see the gaping holes in this logic? of course, it was OK for president bush to authorize torture. he was "making tough choices" and "saving american lives."

but it was not OK for pelosi be told what the president was doing, and was not OK for to "lie" about it later.

because what pelosi knew was "saving american lives"?

comanche, you are, by far, the dumbest person here.

Posted by darladoon at 05/20/2009 @ 10:23am
On the bright side, the GOP Civil War continues...

with Michael "Savage" Weiner taking on El Rushbo himself!

www.huffingtonpost.com

Posted by Mask at 05/20/2009 @ 10:32am
Posted by crabwalk at 05/20/2009 @ 09:25am

Crabs as well as those, you quote, who claim that actionable information was gained without waterboarding, there are those who claim that it was responsible for getting intelligence that was vital to the security interests of the US.

Your story would be more credible if you were able to show the comment from Michael Hayden former CIA director is flawed:

"The facts of the case are that the use of these techniques (including waterboarding) against these terrorists made us safer. It really did work. The president's speech, President Bush in September of ‘06, outlined how one detainee led to another, led to another, with the use of these techniques."

Or this from someone who at least had his ear at the door:

As former G.W. Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen explained a May 2005 Justice Department memo states: "Before the CIA used enhanced (interrogation) techniques...KSM resisted giving any answers to questions about future attacks, simply noting, 'Soon you will find out.'" Waterboarding finally loosened KSM's lips.

"Information obtained from KSM also led to the capture of Riduan bin Isomuddin, better known as Hambali," the memo continues. Hambali supervised October 2002's Bali nightclub bombings that shredded 202 vacationers, including seven Americans, and wounded 209 others."

In fairness Cheney should be given the benefit of the doubt until Obama releases documentary evidence that clearly shows that enhanced interrogation, contrary to Cheney's claim, did not produce the intelligence claimed by waterboarding supporters.

As there is such an entity as justifiable homicide in US law it is plainly hypocritical and totally inconsistent to object to the concept of justifiable torture if and when it could save lives.

Posted by lrjones4 at 05/20/2009 @ 11:08am
Now if there is such a thing as Justifiable Killing it seems ludicrous that there should not be justifiable torture, which does not necessarily snuff out the life of the tortured, in the context of preventing (mass) killings.

If it is not "legal" then the law is an ass.

Posted by lrjones4 at 05/20/2009 @ 08:41am

Sometimes, simple logic is ALL powerful and shouldn't be open to dispute.....and yet, we can't get 100% buy in.....oh, yeah, that's right, we need to respect a diversity of opinions!

Thanks!

BTW, the law as such in the US with the highest per capita ratio of lawyers and an absurdly high level in our political class, is quite often, "an ass"!

Posted by Happy at 05/20/2009 @ 11:10am
Posted by Happy at 05/20/2009 @ 11:10am

So HAPP, as a dedicated ditto-head, you're coming down against the "Savage Nation", right?

Posted by Mask at 05/20/2009 @ 12:04pm
Posted by comancheamerican at BLAH, BLAH, BLAH...

REPORT FROM OBAMA "CAMP HAPPY", OKLAHOMA FACILITY

SUBJECT: COMA-UN-AMERICAN'S RE-EDUCATION

Due to the patient's severe emoto-mental deficiencies and generalized primativism, progress toward re-education has been halting and slow at best. Some staff do not believe that COMA-UN-AMERICAN is re-education material due to the magnitude of his deficiencies. However, as the taxpaying sap is footing the bill for his residency at Obama Camp Happy, we are determined to continue trying re-educational techniques in the hopes of achieving breakthroughs that may generalize to other recalcitrant redneck patients.

This week, COMA-UN-AMERICAN was dispatched under supervision to canvass for ACORN, door to door, which of course also enables ACORN to spy on all Americans and leave surveillance devices. On several occasions, COMA-UN-AMERICAN badly garbled the script when the target opened the door, then relieved himself through the door. This does not advance the cuase of ACORN's hegemony over the American public.

During the two hours hate directed at Richard "9/11" Cheney, COMA-UN-AMERICAN exhibited similar losses of bladder and sphincter control that led to unhygenic bathrooming incidents.

However, more optimistic staff at Camp Happy propose that COMA-UN-AMERICAN's loss of waste control during the two hours hate is a positive sign of regression. In their opinion, COMA-UN-AMERICAN is being broken down to an even more primitive level than his previous redneck self and this will allow Camp Happy staff to rebuild and re-educate him as a New Socialist HuMan, ready and able to carry out stem cell destructions on demand or just for the fun of it. It must be stated this is still the most optimistc view on this specific patient.

Posted by PhilMcCrevice at 05/20/2009 @ 12:07pm
As there is such an entity as justifiable homicide in US law it is plainly hypocritical and totally inconsistent to object to the concept of justifiable torture if and when it could save lives.

Posted by lrjones4 at 05/20/2009 @ 11:08am |

You have yet to show that it saved lives, or that other, better, legal, techniques would not have produced similar results.

And, you are only writing of those waterboarded, not others tortured by contractors or other countries.

If nobody was tortured, why the continued effort to keep pictures and DVD's out of the media?

Again, isn't it ironic that the people that wanted civilians to NOT run the war, the people that deride lawyers, are now the ones hiding behind civilian lawyers? As mentioned by others, just because your lawyer tells you it's legal, doesn't not make it so. Ask Larrys friend Wesley Snipes.

Posted by crabwalk at 05/20/2009 @ 12:09pm
As there is such an entity as justifiable homicide in US law it is plainly hypocritical and totally inconsistent to object to the concept of justifiable torture if and when it could save lives.

Posted by lrjones4 at 05/20/2009 @ 11:08am |

You have yet to show that it saved lives, or that other, better, legal, techniques would not have produced similar results.

And, you are only writing of those waterboarded, not others tortured by contractors or other countries.

If nobody was tortured, why the continued effort to keep pictures and DVD's out of the media?

Again, isn't it ironic that the people that wanted civilians to NOT run the war, the people that deride lawyers, are now the ones hiding behind civilian lawyers? As mentioned by others, just because your lawyer tells you it's legal, does not make it so. Ask Larrys friend Wesley Snipes.

Posted by crabwalk at 05/20/2009 @ 12:09pm
Ask Larrys friend Wesley Snipes.

Posted by crabwalk at 05/20/2009 @ 12:09pm

Cool. I didn't even know that Wesley was a friend of mine.

Posted by antisocialist at 05/20/2009 @ 12:50pm
Ronald Wilson Reagan (on torture in 1988): "The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention. It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today."

Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney (on torture in an interview with ABC News, Dec. 15, 2008) :

"On the question of so-called torture, we don't do torture. We never have. It's not something that this administration subscribes to. Again, we proceeded very cautiously. We checked. We had the Justice Department issue the requisite opinions in order to know where the bright lines were that you could not cross.

The professionals involved in that program were very, very cautious, very careful -- wouldn't do anything without making certain it was authorized and that it was legal. And any suggestion to the contrary is just wrong. Did it produce the desired results? I think it did."

So, I guess even Reagan wasn't strong enough on national security for Dick.

It's obvious they tortured to get a connection between Iraq and al queda that just wasn't there. Saddam (secularist and originally America's puppet against Iran) and bin Laden (jihadist and supporter of Islamic regime in Iran) were enemies and EVERYBODY knew it, most especially the CIA. Who cares what Nancy knew...it's not like she could come out and say anything about it at the time because it was all TOP SECRET.

Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 05/20/2009 @ 1:09pm
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 05/20/2009 @ 1:09pm

Ahhhhh....Ronnie and Dick?....they wuz just funnin'.

Right, Larry?

Posted by Mask at 05/20/2009 @ 1:37pm
Ahhhhh....Ronnie and Dick?....they wuz just funnin'.

Right, Larry?

Posted by Mask at 05/20/2009 @ 1:37pm

What's your point.

Reagan signed the Treaty against Torture with reservations

Cheney certainly told the truth because as I addressed this (especially in response to SRJenkins), the techniques were crafted to ensure that they did not cross the line over into torture.

Leftists like yourself call it torture because it suits your agenda, regardless that it doesn't meet the definition under US Law.

Posted by antisocialist at 05/20/2009 @ 1:50pm
"Reagan signed the Treaty against Torture with reservations"

so what? he signed the treaty. and as such, must abide by it.

"the techniques were crafted to ensure that they did not cross the line over into torture"

but they did, because waterboarding is torture. our legal history of prosecuting others proves that.

"regardless that it doesn't meet the definition under US Law"

the law is clear.

Posted by darladoon at 05/20/2009 @ 2:00pm
Posted by lrjones4 at 05/20/2009 @ 11:08am

"As there is such an entity as justifiable homicide in US law it is plainly hypocritical and totally inconsistent to object to the concept of justifiable torture if and when it could save lives."

"Justifiable homicide" is justified from a legal stand-point, in so far as it reaches a certain threshold of necessity. In practice, the relative threshold is that there is no alternative.

This is why a doctor killing one child when separating conjoined twins that would both otherwise die may be legally justifiable, where another doctor euthanizing a terminally ill patient may not.

Even when you consider that soldiers, prison guard and police are granted greater latitude in claiming "justifiable homicide" by the state, the bottom line is that the justification is that there was no other alternative.

The central problem for the pro-torture position is that you have to assert that there are occasions where there is no alternative to torture, the ticking time bomb scenario. But, the reality is that if you have the time to torture, you don't have a ticking time bomb scenario. In my estimation (and I'd wager most people's) there is no good response to the argument that there are always alternatives to torture.

As a result, arguments like yours that try to establish a justification for torture based on justifications for homicide, ultimately rely on whether the person believes that there are occasions where there is not alternative.

So, I offer the Pepsi challenge. Show me an example where torture was used and there were no alternatives.

After you make the legal case, we can get into utilitarian arguments about relative costs and benefits and the morality of it.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/20/2009 @ 2:06pm
Posted by Happy at 05/20/2009 @ 11:10am

Simple logic that amounts to the fallacy of reduction isn't good logic.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/20/2009 @ 2:08pm
but they did, because waterboarding is torture. our legal history of prosecuting others proves that.

"regardless that it doesn't meet the definition under US Law"

the law is clear.

Posted by darladoon at 05/20/2009 @ 2:00pm

Darla,

You've never read the Bybee memo, have you?

You hear the word waterboarding and immediately assume it is the same as the cases of the Japanese or others.

Yet, if you ever actually bothered to read past your leftist talking points, you would find out why AG Holder is not pursuing investigations and/or indictments.

There is a reason why law is specific and not subject to generalized conclusions such as you repeatedly make.

Posted by antisocialist at 05/20/2009 @ 2:39pm
So, I offer the Pepsi challenge. Show me an example where torture was used and there were no alternatives.

After you make the legal case, we can get into utilitarian arguments about relative costs and benefits and the morality of it.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/20/2009 @ 2:06pm

We might be able to do that if Obama released the records.

Posted by antisocialist at 05/20/2009 @ 2:49pm
We might be able to do that if Obama released the records.----Posted by antisocialist at 05/20/2009 @ 2:49pm

Hey, Larry as far as "releasing documents to vindicate Cheney"...

you'd support releasing the transcripts from the Energy Task Force meeting too, right? Just to once and for all show that Dick was looking out for OUR best interests?

Posted by Mask at 05/20/2009 @ 3:22pm
you'd support releasing the transcripts from the Energy Task Force meeting too, right? Just to once and for all show that Dick was looking out for OUR best interests?

Posted by Mask at 05/20/2009 @ 3:22pm

Apples and oranges. Obama has selectively released some of the documents already. the charge has been levelled by Cheney that the CIA documents support his statements.

As to the Energy Task Force, I've addressed that previously.

1. The Courts already ruled that there was no legal justification to force their release.

2. There is no possibility of anything the task force did of having any weight of law. All you are asking for is to know what recommendations they made to the govt. So what? there is no effect on National Security, there is no effect on energy law because a recommendation is not a law.

Posted by antisocialist at 05/20/2009 @ 3:44pm
Posted by antisocialist at 05/20/2009 @ 2:49pm

Then again, it may not. Ever consider why Bush/Cheney never released any documentation that their policy of torture was necessary and achieved real results? Because of their precious state secrets?

I'm not even restricting the challenge to the U.S. or recent times. Show me any case, at any time in history, that you feel meets the criteria of "justifiable torture" where no other alternative was available and real harm was averted. Lay out the case based on the actual - not your ideas about what might be probable.

I'll even leave aside all the obvious and documented cases where torture accomplished nothing other than destroying the lives of the people tortured and the torturers and those they care about. I'm willing to just look at the positive case.

I'm ready to hear the arguments. But, I need real world examples and not Jack Bauer fantasy land.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/20/2009 @ 5:42pm
As much as I am personally disgusted to say this, I would not hold Bybee accountable for his legal opinion. I actually agree to the point that if you start punishing lawyers for opinions, then you'll get no opinions. Conversely, front line soldiers should not be held accountable for the decisions of Presidents and Vice Presidents (Abu Grahb).

However, I do think he (Bybee) should not be a Federal judge and should be removed by the Bar. Although his opinion is just that, opinion and holds no weight until challenged in a court of law (which I hope it damn well will be!), he, as an attorney was only doing what his client told him to do. What I want to know is was he told by his client (the Bushies) to find that torture was legal prior to looking at the law? In other words, was he DIRECTED to find as he did? Chances are good that if you put the screws to him (so to speak), he'll plead "client privilege." However, any court worth its weight would then declare that we're talking about potential high crimes and misdemeanors, and probably allow him immunity BECAUSE he was an attorney. Trials ensue.

US law has held, CONSISTENTLY, since we signed the Geneva Conventions and before, since WWII when our government prosecuted the Japanese for waterboarding American GIs (calling it "torture"), that waterboarding IS torture and therefore IS illegal. Period. The fact that Bybee and others found that waterboarding was "legal" through some minutia of legal definitions of what "is" is (remember THAT one?), should be at least enough to get him disbarred (I would hope).

Bybee and those who allowed torture to be termed "legal" should, at the very least, no longer be allowed to practice law, since they obviously have such disdain for legal precedent.

Shaksepeare was right!

Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 05/20/2009 @ 5:52pm
Read Leon Panetta's denial. "It is not the policy of this agency to mislead members of congress." WHAT HE DID NOT SAY is that the CIA did not mislead congress- just that it is not agency policy to do so. Panetta and Pelosi are not exactly mortal enemies and It wouldn't be surprising if the right has been lured into a cleverly designed trap. Remember that Pelosi is the one asking for full disclosure of the records. careful what you wish for cheneyites... you may get it.

Posted by budmurray at 05/20/2009 @ 6:29pm
So, I offer the Pepsi challenge. Show me an example where torture was used and there were no alternatives.

After you make the legal case, we can get into utilitarian arguments about relative costs and benefits and the morality of it.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/20/2009 @ 2:06pm

SR my claim is that if waterboarding produces actionable intelligence that has, as is still claimed by its advocates, prevented activities that would have produced the loss of some or many innocent lives then their can be no moral argument against it.

One example where it is claimed it worked is in the statement that KSM gave up no intelligence until he was water boarded. If that claim can be shown to be correct that is all that is needed to show that the alternatives failed. Some junior officers have claimed the contrary. A formal legal investigation (like our Royal Commissions) with powers to force witnesses to testify, on pain of imprisonment, is about the only way to check out the truth of the contrary claims. We all are probably justified in wondering which side is lying until that occurs.

We have a little bit of experience with a couple of Gitmo temporary residents who claimed to have been subjected to all sorts of torture methods there.

Both are now living the high life in Australia. David Hicks formerly an itinerant farm worker and terrorist is now attending university. Not sure how it works over there but my impression is that once you've been justifiably "homicided" its pretty difficult to enjoy even the simple pleasures of life let alone live high on the hog as our "tortured" lads are now doing.

That of course does not justify indiscrimnate torture but indicates the inconsistency of those who accept one and are horrified of the other even if were shown to save many lives.

Posted by lrjones4 at 05/20/2009 @ 8:11pm
Simple logic that amounts to the fallacy of reduction isn't good logic.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/20/2009 @ 2:08pm

The beauty of simple logic is.....most people NOT endowed with the Libs' enormous IQ, can grasp easily.....uh, you......did notice that nobody but the Far Left gives a shit about our waterboarding a few baddies or our outsourced even more `enhanced interrogations' to less enlightened Eastern Europe (or wherever).

I'm not even sure what the heck you mean by "the fallacy of reduction" means. It's ok, don't bother explain..........if I don't get it, kinda explains why simple logic is superior, if not totally infallible, in all cases.

Posted by Happy at 05/20/2009 @ 8:48pm
Notice a their instead of there somewhere but it sounds the same anyway.

SR, in one summary of JH there is this portion:

" Homicide can be considered justifiable homicide if it is committed in self defense, the defense of others, (and) while while trying to prevent a serious crime......."

That really fits the ticking time bomb (which may have a much longer fuse than you allow) scenario down to a tee.

If I was a cynic I would claim that it (the law) is good for the pockets of lawyers and mostly has little to do with justice and fairness, at least in its application. I'm not for a moment suggesting that lawyers who get their bread and butter mostly from defending criminals are not entitled to that bit of self interest. All I'm saying is that consistency, in layman terms, would either remove justified homicide from the law or add justified torture. With the emphasis of course on justified.

There is an article here by Chomsky in which he puts the cat amongst the pigeons by claiming America has always practiced torture from its formation. Chomksy may also be a liar but my guess is he is probably more or less on the ball and not only about America. In that context Bush/Cheney were being open about their use of enhanced interrogation and maybe the law also should reflect the same sort of honesty.

All this by passes the question of when "torture" is not torture and that is probably not always an easy question to answer even with the UN CAT in one hand.

Posted by lrjones4 at 05/20/2009 @ 8:55pm
Posted by lrjones4 at 05/20/2009 @ 8:55pm

You and I know, all of this self-bashing by the Far Lefties is how they get their jollies.

Every gubberment lie, some less than others.

People (and us all here) lie all over the world, some less than others.

We all curse, some less than others.

We all pollute, some less than others.

==============================

Hey, Lefties, are you getting my drift?

Posted by Happy at 05/20/2009 @ 9:13pm
I'm not even sure what the heck you mean by "the fallacy of reduction" means. It's ok, don't bother explain..........if I don't get it, kinda explains why simple logic is superior, if not totally infallible, in all cases.

Posted by Happy at 05/20/2009 @ 8:48pm

Hi happy my guess is that SR heard someone use that term and decided to give it an outing. Though my plea was for consistency one may be able to mount an argument against it on the grounds that a comparison with JH leads to absurd conclusions. That depends on some basic premises like,"non enhanced interrogation is always the best method to get actionable intelligence". Of course we do not yet know if that is a valid premise.

Posted by lrjones4 at 05/20/2009 @ 9:23pm
Posted by lrjones4 at 05/20/2009 @ 8:11pm

"...their can be no moral argument against it."

By my reading, you were making a legal argument, and I thought it had merit, which is why I looked into the details of "justified homicide" to see if there might be some principle or relevant differences worth pointing out. I think the issue of no alternatives and the threshold of necessity are pretty difficult counter-arguments that this legal approach has to overcome.

But, moral arguments? There are plenty of those. I could make deontological claims that it is simply wrong. I could make utilitarian claims (act, rule, whatever measure you like) that those costs of torture are more than its benefits, even when it provides actionable intelligence that stops significant harm - the whole, "it doesn't make us safer" argument.

In this post, you seem to be doing a variation on your other post by making an additional claim that justified torture is less evil than justified homicide. So, if we accept one, then we should accept the other.

Personally, I'd probably counter this argument by tackling justified homicide on utilitarian moral grounds that wouldn't work for torture, which is kind of what I am doing with establishing the no alternative threshold.

I also think if you look at the general impact of torture on people's lives, rather than look at specific, relatively positive examples that give the appearance that there are no long lasting effects, I think your lesser evil argument starts to look less convincing. Is it better to be dead or to live with severe psychological and physical dysfunction caused by torture?

Want to imagine how your life would be after interrogation by Ugandian JATT personnel and whether death is better?

http://www.hrw.org/en/node/82072/section/9

Posted by srjenkins at 05/20/2009 @ 9:42pm
Posted by Happy at 05/20/2009 @ 8:48pm

There are plenty of people disturbed by the torture issue, Happy. Try the Polling report and notice how 40%+ of the population is consistently against any use of torture. Most of whom would probably offer the common sense explanation that, "it just ain't right."

http://www.pollingreport.com/terror.htm

Posted by lrjones4 at 05/20/2009 @ 8:55pm

I agree. It fits the ticking time bomb scenario. But the problem in the ticking time bomb scenario is that - no one can point to a real life example of a ticking time bomb scenario, much less an example where torture "worked" under those conditions. Further, it doesn't address the problems of whether there are alternatives to torture in these scenarios, nor does it allow for limits.

For example, is it okay to threaten to kill a terrorist's wife and children in a ticking time bomb scenario? There's a whole host of problems involved with this line of thought that most people are not giving adequate consideration.

I don't know if Chomsky made these claims (they do sound like something he would say), but the historical precedent doesn't make it morally right or even legal.

"All this by passes the question of when "torture" is not torture..."

In the context of a legal argument, there is case law and historical precedent. If a principle applies to one country at one point in time (such as the waterboarding in Japan), then the same principle holds for other countries at other points in time. A basic principle of international law or human rights. It is also a basic principle of morality that you can't have "double standards".

Posted by lrjones4 at 05/20/2009 @ 9:23pm

Strangely, I spent my college years studying predicate logic, ethics and the like.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/20/2009 @ 10:00pm
Reduction fallacy: assumes uncritically that the various examples of experience are reducible to each other.

Example: The generation of accident report forms to gather information that is statistically massaged to reduce accidents to common "determinant variables" or "causal factors."

Reference: Logic: The Art of Reasoning, Freeman, D.H., D. McKay Co., New York, 1967. As adapted by Joel Ryan, NTSB.

..........

There's no data like skewed data! Sounds like the Warren commission report. Or GW's arrest record. Or the Yellowcake debacle. Bush was famous for 'reductionism' on a daily basis. He was, after all, the 'Decider'. Wonder how his 'Whack-a-mole' biz is doing? I pray that he never actually pens a book. .........

If Pelosi has sinned, she should go. Please stop showing her face on TV and in print.

But, in all fairness, Cheney needs some tender legal administration as well. To be fair. Some of the others too. Pelosi's transgressions can't possibly be more egregious than theirs. And possibly prosecute all the Republicans who also denied that we used torture and are now 'accidentally' lapsing into using that term because 'enhanced interrogation' is quite a mouthful after a couple of scotches.

Posted by ficheye at 05/20/2009 @ 10:10pm
"Cheney okayed torture for political reasons:"

Um, ok. Used torture for political reasons? Seeing as this was secret, and to be political people have to, you know, know about it, and it was not torture by any legal or real world definition, how could he have used torture for political reasons.

Posted by homerjelwood at 05/20/2009 @ 10:38pm
Plus, you're missing the point. Today, she's saying, in effect, "I had no idea! This was so wrong! This was SOOOOOOOOOOOOO WROOOOOOOOOOOOONG!!!" Whereas, in 2002, she basically said, "Do your worst. In fact, are you sure you're not doing enough?"

Posted by homerjelwood at 05/20/2009 @ 10:40pm
Posted by ficheye at 05/20/2009 @ 10:10pm

The reduction fallacy, in this case, is the equivalency that lrjones is making between justified homicide and justified torture, without considering what underlying factors might make them different. It has much broader application than statistical data sets.

Fallacies can also overlap. You could call this an incomplete comparison fallacy, false analogy and probably other terms that aren't coming to mind at the moment.

It doesn't mean he is wrong. It does mean we need to think about it more and see where the weaknesses lie. I would like to see a good response to the no alternative problem before getting too deep into it though.

I also think the whole Pelosi think is besides the point. Everyone in Congress that voted on these measure is culpable. People that were briefed in detail moreso. People that had command and control and were making policy, even more so.

But, before we ask how far should we go before we stop prosecuting people, we need to establish this was a crime, first. Then, you start with the people with the greatest culpability. It seems pretty straight forward to me.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/20/2009 @ 10:59pm
Before Lefties deride me as `endorsing' torture, I would respond that if my own family is involved, you got that right! Otherwise, it's just an acceptance of the world as it is, not the one you (or anyone else) will never get.

Posted by Happy at 05/19/2009 @ 09:59am

No one on this blog accepts things the way they are. Were here, on a blog, arguing with people we don't agree with. The only reason why anyone does that is to try and make sense of the world and change it. People who really accept things they way they are probably think were a bunch of losers.

Posted by curtisp at 05/21/2009 @ 12:36am
Bottom line is many Americans, myself included, really hate some of the people we tortured. It is really hard to care about what happened to them. But we have to. What goes round comes round with interest.

Posted by curtisp at 05/21/2009 @ 12:57am
before we ask how far should we go before we stop prosecuting people, we need to establish this was a crime, first. Then, you start with the people with the greatest culpability. It seems pretty straight forward to me. Posted by srjenkins at 05/20/2009 @ 10:59pm

Exactly. If no crime was committed outside of just poor judgement and bad taste they're going to have to let it go, not least ways because of several legal items that we both mentioned: there are some conservatives who need to go down first. After all, the line forms to the right. (Now that Mackies back in town!)

I don't have a link but here's a nice part of the Chomsky article...

....Perhaps culpability would be greater, by prevailing moral standards, if it were discovered that Bush administration torture had cost American lives. That is, in fact, the conclusion drawn by Maj. Matthew Alexander [a pseudonym], one of the most seasoned U.S. interrogators in Iraq, who elicited "the information that led to the US military being able to locate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qa'ida in Iraq," correspondent Patrick Cockburn reports.

Alexander expresses only contempt for the Bush administration's harsh interrogation methods: "The use of torture by the U.S.," he believes, not only elicits no useful information but "has proved so counter-productive that it may have led to the death of as many U.S. soldiers as civilians killed in 9/11."

(This interrogator, Alexander, is using an alias to avoid prosecution).

Posted by ficheye at 05/21/2009 @ 12:57am
if pelosi approved 'enhanced interrogation techniques,' then shouldn't conservatives love her?

after all, she 'saved american lives.'

Posted by darladoon at 05/21/2009 @ 01:43am
SR the Chomsky article is current on The Nation under the title, "The Torture Memos and Historical Amnesia"

Here is the quote that got me thinking about justifiable torture:

"Obama could stop backing foreign forces that torture, but he has chosen not to do so."

Obama did not shut down the practice of torture, Nairn observes, but "merely repositioned it," restoring it to the American norm, a matter of indifference to the victims. "His is a return to the status quo ante," writes Nairn, "the torture regime of Ford through Clinton, which, year by year, often produced more US-backed strapped-down agony than was produced during the Bush/Cheney years."

SR let me declare myself. I'm a believer in American exceptionalism and whole heartedly concur with our lefty PM's statement that America is the greatest force for good in the world today. So I don't come to the conclusions that Chomsky does but am merely asking for a bit of honesty along the lines of quit the shock-horror bullshit about" our history of purity on torture being sullied by the Bush administration.

Torture (by some definitions) has always been and always will be a part of America's and I'm sure every other nation's armory to be used at certain times. The mistake that Bush made was that by going more or less public in trying to legally justify the use of "enhanced" interrogation, he overlooked the reality that his political enemies would, with the greatest hypocrisy feign amnesia about that, often hidden, aspect of security.

What I'm suggesting is that you should be more honest about how you run your security arm and perhaps even set in legislation more specifically those things that certainly are gross , medieval and are best left there.

Will get back on some of the interesting issues you raise later.

Posted by lrjones4 at 05/21/2009 @ 05:06am
Nancy Pelosi (and Reid and company) only had to sing one song for eight years, a song of hate passionately devoted to the GWB administration. For six of those years she had the added luxury of singing it in the role of "minority opposition", meaning "all attack, no accountability". In short, the song required no brains - therefore, she sang it marvelously, crooned it to her constituents and financial supporters, luxuriated in her self-image as White Knight(ess) slashing away at George the Dragon. And now... she doesn't know how to shift her vocal chords into another gear. She's still galloping away on her horse raising the lance at the great big windmill she thinks it's her divine calling to bring down... hardly noticing he's not in office anymore. It clouds her thinking (such as it is) and leads to the clumsy, oafish rendition of her worn-out song which she performed at that press conference. She can't even differentiate between career CIA people and Bush-Cheney "operatives" (who, she probably thinks, are to this day wiretapping not only her phone but her pillow talk... a revolting thought). All Nancy Pelosi has learned in her career is how to oil the machine, which isn't at all the same thing as sound character and sound governance. In her lust to continue bashing the Bush administration, even post-mortem, she threw logic to the winds and spewed unadulterated, vitriolic politico-babble. Most significantly, even the Obama White House knew she'd gone off the deep end and, clearly, gave CIA the green light to put Madam Speaker in her place... otherwise, who thinks Panetta would have come out against her? That must be the most embarrassing cut of all. I wonder if Pelosi will glow QUITE so much next time Obama speaks to Congress.

Posted by kensears at 05/21/2009 @ 05:12am
Read the story, listen to the troops, not the civilians that are trying to save their own butts. Not the civilians that told you half truths and lies to convince you to send other peoples kids to war.

http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/2008/12/torture200812

Posted by crabwalk at 05/21/2009 @ 06:06am
"There is, alas, no shortage of evidence from earlier times that torture produces bad intelligence. "It is incredible what people say under the compulsion of torture," wrote the German Jesuit Friedrich von Spee in 1631, "and how many lies they will tell about themselves and about others; in the end, whatever the torturers want to be true, is true."

The unreliability of intelligence acquired by torture was taken as a given in the early years of the C.I.A., whose 1963 kubark interrogation manual stated: "Intense pain is quite likely to produce false confessions, concocted as a means of escaping from distress. A time-consuming delay results, while investigation is conducted and the admissions are proven untrue. During this respite the interrogatee can pull himself together. He may even use the time to think up new, more complex ‘admissions' that take still longer to disprove.""-Vanity Fair article

Posted by crabwalk at 05/21/2009 @ 06:21am
Face it, the clown-cons used drunks and drug addicts, torture and propaganda to whip up a fear based nationalistic frenzy that allowed an unnecessary war and the use of torture on multiple individuals that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. They use the "ticking bomb" scenario to justify Marxist techniques, a scenario that was NEVER reality. Then they use their fear of KSM to justify the use of more Marxist techniques on him, a process that used up valuable FBI and CIA time tracking down false leads.

i mean Come on!! The cons were afraid that Padilla would put Uranium in a bucket with bleach, spin it over his head for 45 minutes and make a dirty bomb! THAT is the "ticking time bomb" you guys were afraid of!

"There was no dirty-bomb plot. I'm sure it was just Abu Zubaydah trying to get them excited," says the F.B.I.'s Dan Coleman. "There's never been any corroboration except the confessions of Binyam Mohamed under torture. No one was willing to take their time." But, in the words of the former C.I.A. official Mike Scheuer, "That dirty-bomb business put the fear of God into these people in the administration."

--- "The dirty-bomb plot was simply not credible," Jack Cloonan says. "The government would never have given up that case if there was any hint of credibility to it. Padilla didn't stand trial for it, because there was no evidence to support it."

Posted by crabwalk at 05/21/2009 @ 06:34am
VS

John Ashcroft

"Let me be clear: we know from multiple independent and corroborating sources that Abdullah Al Mujahir [Padilla's nom de guerre] was closely associated with al-Qaeda and that … he was involved in planning future terrorist attacks on innocent American civilians in the United States," Ashcroft said. Had his dirty bomb gone off, it could have caused "mass death and injury."

The shakiness of Ashcroft's "multiple independent and corroborating sources" claim was demonstrated by an affidavit from an F.B.I. agent, Joe Ennis, in support of Padilla's detention. Referring to Binyam Mohamed as "Subject-1," it said that his "wife" had told law-enforcement authorities that he "would often become emotional and cry when he discussed his willingness to die for his God." Strangely enough, Mohamed was and remains unmarried."

---

His "wife" told authorities.

He had no "wife".

"Curveball" had no veracity. Chalibi had no support. Padilla had no dirty bomb. Saddam had no wmd's. There never was a "ticking time bomb". There never was anything to make a "mushroom cloud".

Are you guys catching on yet? Your claims and fears are based on falsehoods, propaganda and movies. Your morallity is based on fear. Your techniques are based on Marxist torture manuals. I thought you hated all things Marxist?

Posted by crabwalk at 05/21/2009 @ 06:41am
Ashcroft said. Had his dirty bomb gone off, it could have caused "mass death and injury."

"The dirty-bomb plot was simply not credible," Jack Cloonan says.

"There was no dirty-bomb plot."- Dan Coleman-FBI.

Funny, the cons usually love the FBI, and distrust the CIA. Now, to justify torture, they fall all over themselves backing the CIA, ignoring the military, law enforcement and their own Saint Reagan.

Why?

Fear. Hatred. Vengeance.

Family Values?

Posted by crabwalk at 05/21/2009 @ 06:47am
There is good reason there should be very few if any repubs.

There is good reason there should be very few if any filthy rich.

When the very fabric of new con repub GOP philosophy is based primarily on greed, no one should be surprised that even humanity itself, for them, is a commodity devalued in several layers of lies and deception driving a better profit.

Posted by hsuBfools at 05/21/2009 @ 07:39am
'Why didn't the House speaker push back harder? When did she actually know what? Was she right to hold a press conference blaming the CIA?' -- Laura Flanders -- The Nation -- 19 May, 2009

'Last Monday night, the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force--a round-the-clock operation at the New York field office of the FBI--got a call from FBI headquarters. Abu Zubaydah, the highest al-Qaeda official to be captured by the U.S., had told interrogators that he had heard other Osama bin Laden loyalists discussing attacks on the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty and other U.S. landmarks. But, a federal law-enforcement official told TIME, Abu Zubaydah had said the conversations took place a while back and claimed he knew of no particular plan. Since his capture in March, Abu Zubaydah has shared some valuable information, says a senior U.S. intelligence source. "He's not b.s.ing us on everything." Then again, says Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, "he is also very skilled at avoiding interrogation. He is an agent of disinformation."

But Abu Zubaydah's statements jibed with claims made by other detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that landmarks may be struck during holidays--a strategy also endorsed by al-Qaeda training videos.' -- CNN -- 27 May, 2002 -- http://archive s.cnn.com/2002/AL LPOLITICS/05/27/tim e.decoding/index.html

Posted by HonestLiberal at 05/21/2009 @ 08:38am
Posted by srjenkins at 05/20/2009 @ 9:42pm

Your appeal to a deontological approach is interesting but as a model for the "real world", in which, there are a wide variety of ethical approaches to most moral dilemmas it does seem, on its own to be an impractical if not an arcane approach.

My suggestion is, in our real world there is always a combination of three basic ways in which we judge the morality of an action despite your introduction of the intrinsic rightness of an action (which may also be absolutist) as the sole arbiter of morality, I'm pretty sure if you were pressed you would also affirm that, intent, rightness and consequence of the action combined give us a more balanced approach to the morality of any action.

To focus on outcome (consequentialism) as I have done does not mean that I am not also cognisant of the moral dimension of motive or intent and most certainly I tend to think of the nature of the action in absolutist terms, so technically I'm not a moral relativist.

I noted your consideration of the long term psychological effects on the tortured, which may not always be immediately apparent. Let me slip into consequential mode and think of the long term psychological effects of the deaths on those related to the 3000 that died on 9/11. Just consider the immediate family; wife, husband, children, mother, father, brothers and sisters. That takes us up to a minimum of 18,000 who are likely to bear those scars for the rest of their lives. That SR seems to me to be a calculus that no ethical system can ignore.

If that is the sort of potential outcome that was averted in the waterboarding of two or three terrorists then I am still prepared to assert there is no comprehensive moral argument against waterboarding.

Posted by lrjones4 at 05/21/2009 @ 09:49am
Posted by lrjones4 at 05/21/2009 @ 09:49am

I asserted that one could counter with a deontological moral claim. These types of moral claims are made all the time in the real world, from everything from prison as "punishment" (as opposed to rehabilitation or for the safety of society) for crime to the wrongness of abortion. Kantian ethics is probably the most noteworthy, and they are non-absolute varieties that make this approach to appealing to people looking for "real world" approaches to moral problems.

While I acknowledge that there are inherent problems in engaging in a calculus of suffering/happiness that is part and parcel of any kind of utilitarian approach (such as consequentialism), I tend to favor utilitarian moral justifications above deontological moral claims. In this case, the whole notion of necessity and being able to accomplish the same thing without torture is essentially a utilitarian response.

I think the major flaw in your position, beyond the necessity standard, is that you are not acknowledging the problems of whether torture is effective (as crabwalk indicates above), the likelihood that a policy of torture is going to involve people that are innocent, the impact of torture on the torturers themselves, the response of others to knowledge of our torture (AQ recruitment/support), the bleeding effects that comes from having a torture policy that is partly implemented by citizen soldiers that then go back to their neighborhoods and work as police officers and prison guards and implementing what they learned, etc.

I've only just scratched the surface, but there are clearly effects that extend more broadly than just to the two or three terrorists (assuming the number is so few is mistake #1) being tortured.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/21/2009 @ 10:09am
Posted by srjenkins at 05/20/2009 @ 10:00pm

SR the point of similarity is that both activities are intrinsically wrong.

JH is justified, not so much on a utilitarian basis, in which the maximum good is in view unless one is prepared to make a distinction between the guilty (the bad recipient) and the innocent (the good perpetrator), which may, depending on circumstances, turn the "innocent until proven guilty principle" on its head but rather on the morality of the motive.

In the case of justifiable torture there are two ethical aspects. viz the intent of the torturer and the consequences. The intent is obvious.

The balance then is between the potential saving of life through actionable intelligence and the effect the knowledge of that torture may have on the safety of one's military and the countries reputation.

It would seem the most reasonable and moral position would be to protect innocent citizens before the other two considerations for the obvious reason that the military is in a fight with the enemy and is able to defend itself and is in harm's way anyway. One could argue that the effect on opinion comes in a poor last to the other two considerations.

Posted by lrjones4 at 05/21/2009 @ 10:50am
"I think the major flaw in your position, beyond the necessity standard,"

Flaw...S...

Plural.

Would you, LR, pull the toenails out of the foot of an 11 year old, if you thought he had knowledge of the wherabouts of his terrorist father?

Why won't anybody answer that question? You float vast conspiracy balloons to prop up your argument for torture, why not pop mine?

If you would torture an 11 year old, doesn't that make you like AQ, where the ends justify the means?

If you wouldn't, does that mean that you would torture an adult to save lives, but not children, even though the same number of lives MAY be saved?

If you wouldn't, doesn't that mean that deep down you know it is wrong?

If you say, In America we don't torture children...why not? If the goal is to save lives, why not pull the nails, inject him with acid, pop a cap in him in front of his mom (a nice "24" episode that I am sure you like, where they fake the capping of a child) or put some panties smeared with menstral blood on his head?

Posted by crabwalk at 05/21/2009 @ 10:56am
Posted by lrjones4 at 05/21/2009 @ 10:50am

Again, again, again...

you make a HUGE assumption, that torture is the ONLY or best means of extracting information, and that it did save lives.

You do not know if it saved lives, you base your assumption on the words of political appointees, politicians and talking heads, not the people that do this for a living and have a long history with interrogation.

George Bush and Ron Reagan wanted to spread a vision of the USA, a vision that spoke to a "shining city", a better place, a place where all are equal, all have certain unalienable rights. By following the Dark Side all efforts to spread that vison lose out to the nut's that can then say "See, the USA is just like the Soviets, just like the Saudis and Egyptians."

We are supposed to fighting extremeism, not endeavoring to mirror it.

Posted by crabwalk at 05/21/2009 @ 11:01am
Pardon the spelling...trying to multi-task...

Peace on Earth, Goodwill towards Men

and other such nonsense...TTFN...

Posted by crabwalk at 05/21/2009 @ 11:03am
Its torture every time Pelosi goes on TV or speaks.

Posted by abell12ct at 05/21/2009 @ 11:10am
Would you, LR, pull the toenails out of the foot of an 11 year old, if you thought he had knowledge of the wherabouts of his terrorist father?

If his father had a nuke and was in the U.S. I would.

Posted by abell12ct at 05/21/2009 @ 11:14am
Posted by srjenkins at 05/21/2009 @ 10:09am

The two or three you and I refer to are the focus of the Pelosi comments and the legal advice re waterboarding presently being placed under the microscope. It is upon those persons and their interrogation history, given that a full release of the documents occurs, that an informed decision about the effectiveness, particularly of waterboarding rests.

There are those on both sides whose protestations fit into to the less than credible basket. Crabs stuff, by anonymous "experts" is in that genre for me. (Crabs spoils himself by statements like Saddam never had WMD. What then did all the damage at Halbja etc? Thoughtless statements like that make one wary of taking his sources very seriously).

Hey Crabs do they have a good propaganda course you could enroll in over there?

Posted by lrjones4 at 05/21/2009 @ 11:15am
Posted by lrjones4 at 05/21/2009 @ 10:50am

Intrinsically wrong is a deontological claim. =) While I acknowledged that your argument had merit precisely because there are similarities. So, we don't disagree there.

Where we disagree is whether there aren't relevant differences that change the moral landscape. From the legal perspective, there is also a standard used in U.S. law based on necessity.

"...the morality of the motive."

Are you sure you want to take the argument this way? It will get ugly as soon as we start talking about vigilantes and Kant with his critique of the "ends not justifying the means" - an argument that can be understand as both deontological and utilitarian.

"The balance then is between the potential saving of life through actionable intelligence and the effect the knowledge of that torture may have on the safety of one's military and the countries reputation."

Yet, you still haven't established that this has ever happened - my Pepsi challenge. Further, you haven't touched on the problem of alternatives and the relative benefits. Based on the justified homicide example, there can be no alternatives, unless you create some new legal construct for homicide equivalent to the "castle" arguments for justified homicide. You haven't done that.

I also think you get into other problems when you start talking about "potential" consequences. If you want to go there, what about the potential that someone outraged by Abu Gharib photos decides to explode a dirty bomb to express their outrage - much as Osama is reported to have done after seeing the U.S. bomb Lebanon?

Very dubious ground.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/21/2009 @ 11:31am
Enjoy the highest-level discourse between heavyweights, jones & jenkins!

Here's my simple logic summary of what it all boils down to:

Is GOOD people resorting to BAD things in the pursuit of GOOD outcomes, justifiable in those rare cases where a BAD outcome, could be catastrophic?

No one on my side, of that I'm fairly certain, would condone GOOD people doing BAD things for anything other than life-and-death threats!

Posted by Happy at 05/21/2009 @ 11:32am
Posted by crabwalk at 05/21/2009 @ 11:01am

It is the same error of not taking into full account differences and consequences. It just applies in different ways. So, you can look at it either as a single flaw or multiple. I agree flaws is probably more apt in this case.

Posted by crabwalk at 05/21/2009 @ 11:01am

I'd go further here crabwalk and say that not only have they failed to show the benefits of torture, but they haven't fully accounted for the negative consequences. Hard to make a utilitarian claim when you are in that position.

Posted by abell12ct at 05/21/2009 @ 11:10am

This is possibly your funniest post.

Posted by abell12ct at 05/21/2009 @ 11:14am

And what happens after, when you discover that he didn't know anything, the child makes up things to stop the torture that took precious resources away from actually finding the person with the bomb, or his father didn't have any bomb but was on a business trip?

Posted by lrjones4 at 05/21/2009 @ 11:15am

You'll remember that I opened it up for any example, from any point in history where the ticking time bomb scenario was in effect and torture got necessary information to stop it that could not be retrieved in any other way.

If I were a terrorist and I knew I only had to die, lie or run out the clock to successfully deal a blow to my enemy, what exactly is torture going to get from me?

It's common sense torture doesn't work. So, it is on you to make a good case and show it does. But, the only thing pro-torture advocates generally offer up is possibilities. I don't think that is good enough. I am looking for someone to provide a good argument with evidence, but I haven't seen it yet.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/21/2009 @ 11:44am
Posted by srjenkins at 05/21/2009 @ 11:31am

should read, "...some new legal construct for torture equivalent to the "castle" arguments for justified homicide. You haven't done that."

I should probably read over my posts.

Posted by Happy at 05/21/2009 @ 11:32am

If I read your position right, it boils down to: the ends justifies the means - so long as the ends are significant enough.

The problem is that "significant enough" is a slippery slope that starts with nuclear bombs and ends up justifying Abu Gharib. Along the way, torture abroad starts to find its way home - and it becomes part of the "enhanced techniques" used by special units of our police. Let go long enough, it shows up in every police headquarters and every prison. See the diffusion of S.W.A.T. teams, "super-max" prisons, and so forth around the country as illustrative examples.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/21/2009 @ 11:55am
If I read your position right, it boils down to: the ends justifies the means - so long as the ends are significant enough.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/21/2009 @ 11:55am

In the narrow context of (likely/possibly) saving lives, most especially that of my own family, unabashedly YES!

I would NOT waterboard to find out, as examples, where AQ's cash is stashed or where they were trained.

Now, don't play MASK on me. I think I've made my position crystal clear.

The world is what it is......

LR has my thanks for sharing his view of American Exceptionalism.....we're not perfect, alas, we're human!

Posted by Happy at 05/21/2009 @ 12:40pm
"In the narrow context of (likely/possibly) saving lives, most especially that of my own family, unabashedly YES!"

well, then, i guess you don't believe that the GC and the CAT applies to the united states?

Posted by darladoon at 05/21/2009 @ 12:55pm
OBAMA/CHENEY DUEL ON THE TORTURE ISSUE Democrats lost the argument on the torture issue when they allowed Cheney and other Republicans to successfully frame the debate around the "effectiveness" of enhanced interrogation methods. And the corporate media went along, happily. The logical implication is stark and simple: If you can prove it is effective, then it is O.K. to use it. And to further make the point, Obama reserved for himself the right to use it in future if need be. Where then is the moral argument? Principle is indivisible--either it is priciple or it is not. Obama and Democrats should have insisted that what is at stake it the illegality and cruelty of certain interrogation methods such as waterboarding and prolonged sleep deprivation. Period. Finally, Obama should not have released classified documents on the issue selectively. He was hoping that that would be enough to show his transparency and that the issue would just go away. Now it is at center stage! That is why he should have supported a full-blown investigation(that should have shot Cheney's mouth up)--making it clear that it is not simply a policy dispute between one another and another (another frame) but an investigation of possible criminality with the attendant need to uphold the law and regain U.S moral high ground in the commity of nations. Finally, Democrats in the Senate are doing their damn best to sabotage their own President--just think of their grandstanding on Gitmo closing!

Posted by drsam8 at 05/21/2009 @ 2:45pm
Hey Crabs do they have a good propaganda course you could enroll in over there?

Posted by lrjones4 at 05/21/2009 @ 11:15am

Are you saying that in 2003 Saddam had stockpiles of WMd's? That is what we are discussing, the comments made by Cheney and others, and statements he continues to make. YOU, not me, continue to follow people that have made multiple false claims to justify extreme measures. If someone comes to me and says "x, Y and Z" and X,Y and Z turn out to be false, why wuld you expect me to beleive them when they say "Wolf!"?

And yes, we has an 8 year course in propaganda, nationalism fear and corruption. Take a look at the number of Bush officials and GOP members doing time now. I am sure the cons would compare it to the number of dems during CLinton (who had fewer officials convicted than Bush) but remember, they came in talking about morality, ethics, family values, returning credibility to the White House. They left arguing about torturing and holding people indefinitely without trials.

I don't know about you but when I took ethics classes, and sat in church learning about morals, we usually ruled out torture, cruel and unusual treatment and jail sentences without trial as .... Soviet, Cuban, Romanian, E. German. America used to be different.

---

we're not perfect, alas, we're human!

Posted by Happy at 05/21/2009 @ 12:40pm |

I can see you and abel were made in Gods image.

Posted by crabwalk at 05/21/2009 @ 2:54pm
No one on my side, of that I'm fairly certain, would condone GOOD people doing BAD things for anything other than life-and-death threats!

Posted by Happy at 05/21/2009

And if your side got the wrong person who happened to be GOOD? As they owe you, your own and the greater good around you nothing, that person would be entitled to do very bad things in return.

Some would call it revenge, others would call it justice.

Posted by curtisp at 05/21/2009 @ 4:10pm
(Crabs spoils himself by statements like Saddam never had WMD. What then did all the damage at Halbja etc? Thoughtless statements like that make one wary of taking his sources very seriously). Hey Crabs do they have a good propaganda course you could enroll in over there? Posted by lrjones4 at 05/21/2009 @ 11:15am

Always a divisive topic. There is certainly a lot of quality evidence that Saddam gassed the Kurds, although the CIA saw fit to blame the Iranians for a time just to create confusion. I'll never argue that point. I think that a lot of countries possess chemical weapons, however. We should be concerned about the parties who supplied the chemical precursors. Singapore and the Netherlands gave them the lions share of their supplies. And, with all the evidence purported to be in existence that alleges that the chemical precursors were buried in the northern desert, why doesn't anyone go find them? There's a lot of satellite technology that they use to find archeological sites, etc. I'm sure that they could use it to locate recent perturbations in the earth

But, horrendous as those attacks were, isn't this a classic case of wishful obfuscation? Did Saddam have anything to do with 911? The answer is still NO. He was just a bad man who served as the fall guy so that George Bush could look like a hero after screwing up during the attack on america. Which is also another subject that will never see it's deserved conclusion. There are recent reports of someone finding thermite chips at the 911 disaster site. I'm not stating an opinion other than the alleged existence of these substances.

I think they should have made all the terrorists read the Nations blog for a few months. Now there's some real torture for you. No water, no boards, no bugs.

Posted by ficheye at 05/21/2009 @ 4:54pm
Let the new con repubs keep pulling the stuff out of their behinds and call it manna-- fewer and fewer are falling for their crap:

http://tinyurl.com/cq82j8

http://tinyurl.com/pun49t

Posted by hsuBfools at 05/21/2009 @ 6:38pm
"... what about the potential that someone outraged by Abu Gharib photos decides to explode a dirty bomb to express their outrage - much as Osama is reported to have done after seeing the U.S. bomb Lebanon?"

Very dubious ground.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/21/2009

SR and to Crabs also.

I have mentioned once or twice before that it is pretty easy to check out whether one is getting the right information (whether the interrogation is enhanced or not). Just go and check out the accuracy of the nfo given up. .. persons, places and times.That seems to me to be a foolproof way in which to check out whether the interrogated has given up accurate information. So all that theoretical and apparently subjective stuff about torture not working to produce actionable intelligence can be and in fact is blown away on the basis of one single piece of intelligence thus confirmed. That is the sort of evidence that tells us all that it does work and perhaps indicates that the real fabricators are the "experts" who say it does not work.

As the claim that vital intelligence was given up only when waterboarding was used on KSM then all we are waiting for, to see if this is so, is a release of the confirming documentation or evidence given before a properly constituted legal enquiry.

That is an objective way of checking out the positive effect of waterboading given we accept it is a good to save the lives of the innocent.

However when we come to look at the negatives we have at this stage only opinions about the likely bad effects. I know by its nature it is harder to quantify these aspects but it seems to me about all we have is an insurance policy approach by the military which is more concerned with hiding what is being done than stopping it. On a sort of just in case basis.

Posted by lrjones4 at 05/21/2009 @ 7:19pm
Posted by lrjones4 at 05/21/2009 @ 7:19pm

I'm sorry but that's not going to get it. The justification for torture that you are using is the scenario - a ticking time bomb. But, you suppose in this situation that you are going to both have time to torture and check your sources. Checking sources and information takes time, time you don't have with a ticking time bomb.

Then, you add to this by arguing that since it is hard to account for negative effects, you'd rather just discount them - and assume that the positives outweigh them.

Dubious ground indeed.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/21/2009 @ 8:25pm
Posted by srjenkins at 05/21/2009 @ 8:25pm

We are at cross purposes because we have a different understanding of the term "ticking time bomb". I am not using it in a literal sense, as you apparently are because you introduce the aspect of immediacy.

What I meant by ticking time bomb was the whole process of establishing the personnel and infrastructure to carry out an activity such as 9/11 or the Bali bombing etc. That if unhindered is like a ticking time bomb but the sort of immediacy that would be required with a literal time bomb is not necessarily there.

The claim is that KSM had info about such a "ticking time bomb" scenario and only after waterboarding did he give up the intelligence necessary to dismantle that claimed attempt at mass killing of innocent Americans. It is claimed also that it took 183 attempts at waterboarding to get that information, so that obviously rules out the sort of time frame you have in mind. Events like 9/11 are a long time in the planning. To cap, your time parameter is irrelevant to the moral or ethical considerations.

For what it's worth your scenario would present a hopeless task simply because the claimed KSM evidence still points to a longer process of getting information even with waterboarding than your sort of "ticking time bomb" would require. I thought that would have been self evident.

As far as the possible negative effects are concerned I showed how they might ethically be discounted, not totally ignored but discounted and measured on a "greater good" balance sheet.

Posted by lrjones4 at 05/21/2009 @ 9:20pm
LR, the FBI said they spent a lot of time, and money, chasing down false leads brought about by these methods we are discussing.

Another nail in the coffin of your logic, I am afraid.

----

Statement of Ali Soufan, FBI interrogator:

..."From my experience – and I speak as someone who has personally interrogated many terrorists and elicited important actionable intelligence– I strongly believe that it is a mistake to use what has become known as the "enhanced interrogation techniques," a position shared by many professional operatives, including the CIA officers who were present at the initial phases of the Abu Zubaydah interrogation.

These techniques, from an operational perspective, are ineffective, slow and unreliable, and as a result harmful to our efforts to defeat al Qaeda. (This is aside from the important additional considerations that they are un-American and harmful to our reputation and cause.)

...A second major problem with this technique is that evidence gained from it is unreliable. There is no way to know whether the detainee is being truthful, or just speaking to either mitigate his discomfort or to deliberately provide false information. As the interrogator isn't an expert on the detainee or the subject matter, nor has he spent time going over the details of the case, the interrogator cannot easily know if the detainee is telling the truth. -----This unfortunately has happened and we have had problems ranging from agents chasing false leads to the disastrous case of Ibn Sheikh al-Libby who gave false information on Iraq, al Qaeda, and WMD.----

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/statement-

of-fbi-agent-ali-soufan-at-torture-hearings/

Posted by crabwalk at 05/22/2009 @ 06:35am
cont...

"As you can see from this timeline, many of the claims made in the memos about the success of the enhanced techniques are inaccurate. For example, it is untrue to claim Abu Zubaydah wasn't cooperating before August 1, 2002. The truth is that we got actionable intelligence from him in the first hour of interrogating him.

In addition, simply by putting together dates cited in the memos with claims made, falsehoods are obvious. For example, it has been claimed that waterboarding got Abu Zubaydah to give up information leading to the capture of Jose Padilla. But that doesn't add up: Waterboarding wasn't approved until 1August 2002 (verbally it was authorized around mid July 2002), and Padilla was arrested in May 2002.

The same goes for KSM's involvement in 9/11: That was discovered in April 2002, while waterboarding was not introduced until almost three months later. It speaks volumes that the quoted instances of harsh interrogation methods being a success are false.

Authoritative CIA, FBI, and military sources have also questioned the claims made by the advocates of the techniques. For example, in one of the recently released Justice Department memos, the author, Stephen Bradbury, acknowledged a (still classified) internal CIA Inspector General report that had found it "difficult to determine conclusively whether interrogations have provided information critical to interdicting specific imminent attacks."

Posted by crabwalk at 05/22/2009 @ 06:39am
Posted by crabwalk at 05/22/2009 @ 06:39am

The argument was not and is not about logic but about the accuracy of the claims and counter claims about harsh interrogation.

Ali Soufan was not really in the loop once waterboarding began and thus is not in a position to know firsthand how effective that method was.

Comments at his Senate appearance last week indicate that he is not an expert on the effectiveness of that phase of the interrogation:

"Democrats called a witness -- former FBI interrogator Ali Soufan --...........

He said al-Qaida senior operative Abu Zubaydah clammed up under rough interrogation by CIA contractors. Soufan insisted that Zubaydah gave up valuable information about "dirty bomb" terrorist Jose Padilla when his team used a non-threatening approach to gain his confidence and outwit him.

But Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., pointed out that Soufan wasn't present for the rougher tactics and said he didn't know the whole story."

Here is the claim that needs to be proven true or false:

(Bush administration documents released by the Justice Department say Zubaydah, who was waterboarded 83 times, and Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, waterboarded 183 times, gave up critical information because of the technique).

Along with the following:

"Last month, Obama's Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, told employees in a memo that interrogations that included waterboarding had secured useful intelligence. Blair later issued a public statement that said it was not known whether the same information could have been obtained without harsh techniques -- the same position Obama has taken when asked. "

All of us will be able to make up our minds one way or the other only when Obama releases the documentation Cheney wants made public.

Posted by lrjones4 at 05/22/2009 @ 08:59am
It has been reported that Ali's testimony before the Senate Judicial Committee was from behind a screen for security reasons, though he has been out of the FBI since 2005, from memory. That probably indicates one reason why there is a dearth of those interrogators that used harsh interrogation methods.

As far as I can ascertain there has not been any testimony from the CIA agents involved in the "post Ali" interrogation of Zubaydah or KSM yet. That is vital missing testimony and may be what is making Cheney so confident that a release of the relevant information on that phase of the interrogation will vindicate his support for it.

(Cynics make say he knows Obama will not release it but he is taking a very big risk to his credibility if that is so and Obama does the right thing).

Posted by lrjones4 at 05/22/2009 @ 09:29am
Curious...

how is it the FBI uncovered that plot against the NY synagogues....

without waterboarding anybody?!??!?!!???

Posted by Mask at 05/22/2009 @ 09:49am
Posted by lrjones4 at 05/21/2009 @ 9:20pm

The aspect of immediacy is the whole point of using the "ticking time bomb" scenario. The time constraint is used to eliminate the problem of alternative methods of getting information besides torture - and helps with the effort to justify it. It is the basis of "justified homicide", and it is a logical course to follow given the analogy you were using. So, it is quite relevant to the moral questions of torture.

But, the time constraints, in the context of needing to get information by torture, also creates a new problem that you cannot confirm the information and your source has every reason to lie or not divulge this information to you. So, there is a very important difference between "justified homicide" where you kill someone and "justified torture" based on obtaining necessary information to prevent harm. The difficulty of getting someone to give up information that do not want to share is orders of magnitude more difficult than killing them.

So, I can understand not wanting to go that route. But, now, I'm reading that you want to expand the time horizon. That's fine, but now you have to deal with the problem of alternative methods AND the problem of reliable information. What did KSM tell his torturers that could not have been found out in any other way? Why was the torture necessary, i.e., justified?

And, if there were alternative methods, then you also have the problem of evaluating the relevant advantages and disadvantage - and how they contributed to some outcome, such as reducing the possibility of some X catastrophic event. That's a messy business, and I would argue reduces to subjective arguments without much basis in rationality, i.e. you aren't going to convince anyone other than people than share your bias.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/22/2009 @ 10:01am
Posted by lrjones4 at 05/22/2009 @ 08:59am

"Bush administration documents released by the Justice Department say Zubaydah, who was waterboarded 83 times, and Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, waterboarded 183 times, gave up critical information because of the technique."

While this would be helpful to know, you have to go further than this, unfortunately. You have to explain why this information could not be obtained using other techniques or using standard intelligence practices from other sources. That's a much more difficult case to make.

The justification for torture has to meet a higher standard than mere convenience, you have to talk about the efficacy in relation to other intelligence gathering methods and define the circumstances where it is justified. That's what ticking time bomb situations try to do. That's why people identify specific circumstances when they talk about justified homicide: to prevent a serious crime from occurring like murder, prisoner escapes, self-defense after retreat or within the confines of a "castle", etc. You aren't doing that for torture - and the same justifications for homicide don't work for torture because homicide is easier to do and you don't need to have any other result beyond killing the person.

The justification for torture, in the end, requires coercion that results in a specific result - obtaining information that prevent a serious harm from occurring. And there are alternatives, particularly outside an immediate time frame. At heart, this is why it is so difficult to justify it.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/22/2009 @ 10:15am
Curious...

how is it the FBI uncovered that plot against the NY synagogues....

without waterboarding anybody?!??!?!!???

Posted by Mask at 05/22/2009 @ 09:49am

It's a bogus question.

1. Who has ever said that the only way we get intel is from interrogations of detainees?

2. No one who supports the enhanced interrogation techniques has ever said or even suggested that they are applicable in every instance. As Cheney reminded Americans yesterday, those techniques were applied very selectively with only a few detainees when it was determined that no other methods (contrary to Ali Soufan) were effective.

What the left has attempted is to portray these techniques as having been widely used with vast numbers of detainees. This lie is used to try and manipulate public opinion with an obvious falsehood.

Posted by antisocialist at 05/22/2009 @ 10:31am
Posted by antisocialist at 05/22/2009 @ 10:31am

"No one who supports the enhanced interrogation techniques has ever said or even suggested that they are applicable in every instance."

Let's hope not. The question is in what instances based on what criteria.

"As Cheney reminded Americans yesterday, those techniques were applied very selectively with only a few detainees when it was determined that no other methods (contrary to Ali Soufan) were effective."

Maybe we have different definitions of "very selectively" because when I hear about:

1. A system of extraordinary rendition and black sites and reports from the Council of Europe that they have good evidence that they impacted at least 100 people

2. Well-documented cases like Abu Gharib and Bagram

3. The reports of individuals involved such as Tony Lagouranis

4. Legal arguments justifying torture

5. Command directives telling soldiers to cause stress and duress in prisoners with a SOP of sensory deprivation with few, if any, rules of engagement, and so forth.

I'm led to the conclusion that "...these techniques as having been widely used with vast numbers of detainees". Not only that, I think you can make larger claims that instances like Abu Gharib, they flourished out of control in theater with little or no oversight. Even worse, there seems to be evidence that some people were torturing with impunity with the assistance of health care "professionals".

But, I'm not making any argument based on the numbers being tortured. I'm asking people that believe torture is justified, in any case, to show me a real world example where there were no alternatives and that avoiding some severe consequence was avoided by that torture. The fact that you can't suggests how little justification there is.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/22/2009 @ 11:38am
But, I'm not making any argument based on the numbers being tortured. I'm asking people that believe torture is justified, in any case, to show me a real world example where there were no alternatives and that avoiding some severe consequence was avoided by that torture. The fact that you can't suggests how little justification there is.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/22/2009 @ 11:38am

As you know, I have maintained that the Bybee Memo does not describe any authorization of torture. It was very specific on how far you could go without crossing that line.

Posted by antisocialist at 05/22/2009 @ 11:53am
Posted by antisocialist at 05/22/2009 @ 11:53am

I'm not terribly interested in talking about Bybee, but since you insist.

You'll notice that the memos touch on the grounds for justification if their legal rationalizations are repudiated for 18 USC 2340. They are necessity and self-defense - same as for justified homicide. I think we've covered the issues there.

The torture memos define torture as: "Physical pain equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function or death". While this is far from an exact definition and leaves plenty of weasel room, here's the question:

They explicitly state that although someone subjected to waterboarding may experience the fear or panic associated with the feeling of drowning, the actual technique "does not in our view inflict severe pain or suffering [based on the definition above]."

Here's the rub. Waterboarding was a war crime of torture when Yukio Asano did it in WWII. He got 15 years of hard labor for a war crime, for torture.

I'd like to know why the standard has changed. Why does torture mean something different when the U.S. is doing it?

In any event, you are trying to side-track the moral problems we are discussing about justified torture by first trying to change it into a numbers game, then by attempting to bog down the discussion in mind-numbingly boring, poorly constructed and repudiated legal opinions.

Let's establish there is a justification for it, AT ALL, before we try to minimize the issue by trying to make it look like it impacted few people. At that point, I'll be happy to point to all the evidence that suggests that torture was endemic. The legal opinions have been rejected, I show one reason why. Let's move on from Bybee.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/22/2009 @ 1:00pm
Let's establish there is a justification for it, AT ALL, before we try to minimize the issue by trying to make it look like it impacted few people. At that point, I'll be happy to point to all the evidence that suggests that torture was endemic. The legal opinions have been rejected, I show one reason why. Let's move on from Bybee.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/22/2009 @ 1:00pm

Interesting argument. You propose that I capitulate to your definitions which effectively ends the debate.

There appears to be no reason to suspect that either side will submit to the other's reasoning on what is or isn't torture.

I do submit that the justification for enhanced techniques becomes necessary when the need for intel from a detainee who is known to be connected to the planning element is sufficient to go beyond elementary techniques when the nation's security including the citizenry is at stake.

Posted by antisocialist at 05/22/2009 @ 4:41pm
Posted by antisocialist at 05/22/2009 @ 4:41pm

You're not reading very carefully, LVL. I haven't offered any definitions. I stated:

"Waterboarding was a war crime of torture when Yukio Asano did it in WWII. He got 15 years of hard labor for a war crime, for torture...I'd like to know why the standard has changed. Why does torture mean something different when the U.S. is doing it?"

I have proposed a number of things:

1. Answer the question above.

2. Show one example, any example, where torture was justified - feel free to pick from anywhere in history.

3. Define when torture is justified and your moral argument in support of it.

Instead of doing any of these things, you offer some vague statement of "enhanced techniques" (i.e., torture) can be used when the "planning element" (i.e., anyone we like from bin Laden's driver to bin Laden himself, their families, etc.) when they threaten our "nation's security" (i.e., anytime we like).

Translation: torture is justified on whomever whenever we feel threatened.

You are trying to hide behind abstractions and obfusification in an attempt to conceal the fact that there is no moral basis to this position. At least Happy is above board and honest and takes a position of the end justifying the means if the ends are important enough - and all the moral implications that entails. LR - to his credit - is trying to find some moral foothold to justify his support.

You're doing neither.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/22/2009 @ 6:29pm
Posted by srjenkins at 05/22/2009 @ 10:01am |

SR my reading of your position, having read all your posts on this topic, is that if it could be shown that waterboarding got information, that saved innocent lives and which could not be obtained in any other way, then you would, perhaps begrudgingly, accept that it was justified. That is the same position I'm espousing here.

However one thing we disagree on is what constitutes a "ticking time bomb"?.

Now I fail to see what immediacy has to do with the morality of trying to prevent the killing of many innocents. Is it not obvious to you that a 9/11 type event is years in the planning and information that would have prevented such an event would have been vital up until the last few weeks or days before it was put into effect?

So in what way does the immediacy criteria you arbitrarily place upon the TTB change the moral dimensions of using information that can only be got by waterboarding ? If that information is not got in time the ticking will eventually stop and devastation will follow.

You then revert to the analogy of JH.

Your legal system, like ours, is based on English law. This year here in Victoria a 60 yo women who was treated abominably (bashings, sexual degradation etc) by her long time husband planned his death over a period of months (perhaps she had contemplated it for years). She shot him to death whilst he was sleeping. The police charged her with murder. The trial jury acquitted her on the grounds of justifiable homicide.

So the correspondence with JT is not affected by immediacy as you claim. I'm sure that is not an isolated case and it shows that JH is not qualified by the immediacy constraint you arbitrarily would impose upon it. Will respond later to other points raised if thread still open.

Posted by lrjones4 at 05/22/2009 @ 10:38pm
Posted by lrjones4 at 05/22/2009 @ 10:38pm

I am against using torture. I don't think it is ever justified. I don't think it is effective. I don't think it is morally right to do, period.

That said, I'm also aware than I may be wrong. If I saw a particularly strong argument for justified torture, I'd look for every weakness I could find in the position. But, in the end, I am more concerned about truth than any specific position, so if someone could put together a convincing argument, then I may have to admit I was wrong. But, I think the truth is with me on this one.

"Now I fail to see what immediacy has to do with the morality of trying to prevent the killing of many innocents."

The more time you have, the more difficult it is to argue for the necessity of torture. If you have a plot with a two year time horizon, when does torture figure in? What happens if you find the same information two months later through an informant - was the torture necessary?

Then there is the whole efficacy issue, there is the claim that building relationships built on trust is more effective at getting information. If you have the time to do this, why torture?

"Is it not obvious to you that a 9/11 type event is years in the planning and information that would have prevented such an event would have been vital up until the last few weeks or days before it was put into effect?"

Yes, it is obvious. It is equally as obvious that this problem was identified, but wasn't acted upon - and torture doesn't obviously add anything to our intelligence capability. It does, however, have serious moral consequence.

To be continued...

Posted by srjenkins at 05/22/2009 @ 11:27pm
"So in what way does the immediacy criteria you arbitrarily place upon the TTB change the moral dimensions of using information that can only be got by waterboarding."

This is an assumption I don't make. I don't think there is any circumstance where waterboarding is the ONLY way to get at a piece of information. That's part of the reason for the Pepsi challenge. Show me one example where this was true. If you can't, then this suggests that this is merely a hypothetical, not something we want to assume.

"You then revert to the analogy of JH."

LVL wanted to talk about torture memos which are based on law. We need to distinguish between talking about moral implications and legal issues. It is this kind of confusion that enables justified torture proponents to put forth a position that seems plausible on the surface, but looks shabby on close inspection.

I hate to nitpick. But, I'm not inclined to call a calculated killing of this sort justified homicide - basically for the same reasons I've outlined for torture. This woman had alternatives. She could have left her husband, called the police, or even shot him to prevent abuse. In the last case, she might have an argument for justified homicide. Shooting someone in their sleep? I think that is an unambiguous case of murder. I suspect a different jury may have come back with a different verdict.

"So the correspondence with JT is not affected by immediacy as you claim."

Immediacy is only important because it limits alternatives. The question is about necessity, and necessity is put into doubt whenever alternative courses of action are possible.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/22/2009 @ 11:39pm
Posted by srjenkins at 05/22/2009 @ 11:39pm

SR you have now declared your absolute opposition to any form of interrogation which includes harsh methods that may be construed as torture. That sort of morality is your prerogative of conscience though I would argue that that is a self centered, pitiless morality (see below).

At the same time you have been doing your best to give the impression that your main objection to waterboarding specifically, for this is the particular method in view, was on the grounds that you think it is no more effective in getting crucial information than a conversational style interview conducted by experts like Ali Soufan.

Given all your attempts at proving what you "think" is the reality, we are still left with the claim KSM gave up vital information that was not got by Ali's ingratiating style and it was only when waterboarding was used that it was possible to get information that defused the ticking time bomb, which rumour has was ticking away on your West Coast.

At present that is all anyone, who is in the know, is telling us. Further unlike you and me, Obama and Dennis Blair, who should know much more than both of us put together, are sure that valuable TTB defusing information was gained by waterboarding. However as to the question "Could this information have been gotten by other means? Their answer is, we don't know.

That is hardly a ringing endorsement for your position of near certainty.

Until that info is forthcoming the most reasonable unbiased attitude surely is to ask for the proof that waterboarding did work as claimed or it did not. And some indication of why other methods, such as Ali Soufan's, were discarded.

Posted by lrjones4 at 05/23/2009 @ 03:38am
Posted by lrjones4 at 05/23/2009 @ 03:38am

My position is a reasoned, evidence-based position. The justifications that are used for torture, that I have seen, involve making unwarranted assumptions, like: torture is the only way to know X and X is the only way to stop bad event Y; claiming torture has more beneficial effects than negative effects by trying to pretend that it has been in recent history "selectively" applied (in an attempt to reduce its negative consequences) and saved many lives (in an attempt to tip the balance toward the good); others are simple fallacies (like your current argument that amounts to an appeal to authority), etc.

It's a house of cards. There is no evidence that any of this is true. Historically or currently, people cannot identify any circumstance where their hypothetical conditions were met in the real world. There is plenty of evidence, on the other hand, that torture has bad effects on everyone involved. It seems to me that the safe moral course is to avoid it altogether.

But, instead of going that route, most people in support of torture just assume that are right, and you can see they are fooling themselves when they can't even call it what it is but want to pussy-foot around and call it "harsh methods" or some other such nonsense.

If you want to be for torture, man up. Just say it is your opinion that it has to be done sometimes, innocents will be tortured, but in your estimation that it's the lesser evil that leads to the greater good. Happy has essentially done this - and while I think he is dead wrong, he's not trying to hide what he supports be redefining it, vague appeals to authority or hypotheticals about nuclear bombs going off ten years from now that justify torturing a prisoner now because it MIGHT prevent it.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/23/2009 @ 08:12am
Posted by lrjones4 at 05/23/2009 @ 03:38am

"Given all your attempts at proving what you "think" is the reality, we are still left with the claim KSM gave up vital information..."

A claim asserted by an administration that made a wide variety of bogus claims to justify their actions. An administration that regularly orchestrated "orange" alerts, military actions and manipulated processes (like the judgment against Hussein), and so forth at politically convenient times. What better lie is there than the lie that can't be checked because it's classified? We could tell you, but then we'd have to kill you.

Pardon me if I don't find that very convincing.

"Further unlike you and me, Obama and Dennis Blair, who should know much more than both of us put together, are sure that valuable TTB defusing information was gained by waterboarding."

Feel free to point me to where Obama came out for waterboarding or torture or admitted that previous waterboarding was responsible for defusing a ticking time bomb. I've never seen it, and I doubt it happened.

"That is hardly a ringing endorsement for your position of near certainty."

The fact that you cannot point to another circumstance, throughout history, like this one suggests to me that this is a fabrication. On the other hand, I do know one of the proponents of this position, Dick Cheney, once called U.S. involvement in Nicaragua in the 1980s a "success" during a vice-presidential "debate". It is clear that Dick's ideas about necessity, what evil he is willing to commit, and his definition of "valuable information" or "success" are different from mine - and most people's. So, I think it is better we lay out the case clearly, and not rely on Dick's judgment.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/23/2009 @ 08:33am
SR I remember how moved I was when as a teenager I first read the story of the Christian pacifist, Sophie Scholl, who indentified with the White Rose student movement at Munich University during 1942-43. It was a passive resistance movement against almost every Nazi policy and especially the war.

Sophie and her associates, including her brother Hans, showed tremendous bravery in a fearless embrace of their principles even on the day of their execution by guillotine the same day as their trial, 22nd February 1943. She was 21; her brother a few years older:

Scholl, her brother Hans, and White Rose member Christoph Probst were subsequently brought to trial in the People's Court in a crowd of hand-picked Nazi supporters and in front of the notorious Nazi judge Roland Freisler. Found guilty, each was allowed to give a brief statement. Scholl proclaimed, "Where we stand today, you will stand soon."

Hans and Sophie Scholl and Probst were executed just hours after their trial. Sophie Scholl's last words were: "Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?"

She was the sort of pacifist that all of us would own and in my case I have nothing but respect for those who remain true to their pacifistic principles.

However when it comes to those having pacifistic principles that entail no personal cost to them and which leads them to ignore the death and suffering that might come to others simply because I have a selfish inner need to stand true to my principles, in a sort of isolated feel goodism, then it is hard to not brand that a pitiless, detached morality that should have no place in a compassionate, thinking person's mind.

Posted by lrjones4 at 05/23/2009 @ 08:51am
The selfishness is from those that would cause pain to others in an attempt to avoid a possible outcome, an outcome that is not pre-ordained.

Innocent people were tortured in your name. We know that. You may not want to admit it LR, but it happened, many times. People were tortured, no intelligence was gained .(isn't that just such an ironic, disturbing statement? ) If a guilty person had to be waterboarded 183 times, how do you KNOW that other methods would not have produced results faster, or maybe slower but with the same end results? The civilian admin gave up pretty quickly on traditional, legal, effective methods. They did it out of fear, they admit that.

Now the same people that will not release paperwork that may prove innocence of third parties are calling for the release of "state secrets" that may exonerate themselves. I would call that selfishness.

The civilian admin abandoned the military interrogation manual, the CIA manual and decades of experience and law, and went with contractors that admitted they had little experience in these matters. In doing so they created hundreds of false leads that removed investigators from important work. Using the logic you have used here I could easily make a case that that caused the death of Americans as other REAL plots went undiscovered.

As it stands now, the cons, who usually go with the authority figures, FBI, the military, have abandoned their normal heroes in favor of amateurs . They cling to the words of a man, and machine, that lied multiple times (SR points this out well) to hide their own activities or direct attention away from their activities.

You guys have not only approached t the mentality of Castro and other dictators, you have joined them in their reasoning: the ends justify the means.

Posted by crabwalk at 05/23/2009 @ 09:38am
LR has accused me of following anonymous sources, but he has done the same. Multiple statements prior to the invasion of Iraq came from anonymous sources, sources that we did not learn about till after the war began (notice the war is still going on, 6 years later)

Curve ball was anonymous, the Niger forgery came from an anonymous source. Cheney used the term "we have learned from sources..." many times, without naming the source.

Next LR says that other sources I quote were not there when people were tortured. Neither was Cheney or LR. So you accept the word of private contractors and known liars. That is a tough sell for me.

====

http://www.allacademic.com

"Abstract:

A study of 528 news items from 11 countries explores how the use of anonymous and unnamed sources influences news content. One research question and four hypotheses are tested and find that a third of all sources were not identified by name and that the use of these sources meant fewer ideas opposing the war were found in content and that the tone of news items presented the war as being more positive and unavoidable."

----

Abu Zubaida's revelations triggered a series of alerts and sent hundreds of CIA and FBI investigators scurrying in pursuit of phantoms. The interrogations led directly to the arrest of Jose Padilla, the man Abu Zubaida identified as heading an effort to explode a radiological "dirty bomb" in an American city. Padilla was held in a naval brig for 3 1/2 years on the allegation but was never charged in any such plot. Every other lead ultimately dissolved into smoke and shadow, according to high-ranking former U.S. officials with access to classified reports.

"We spent millions of dollars chasing false alarms," one former intelligence official said.-WaPo articl

Posted by crabwalk at 05/23/2009 @ 09:48am
If nobody did anything wrong, why did the CIA destroy 92 tapes of interrogations? It seems to me that LR and his buddies are concentrating on one or 2 detainees, and ignoring the ones that were tortured but produced no "actionable intelligence". The reason for that must be that they don't want to admit that they harmed people out of fear, they harmed people and got nothing for it.

"I'm afraid Pa, I hear woozles under my bed. Will you smack the neighbor kid around till I FEEL better? Thanks Pa".

This whole debacle boils down to fear and vengeance. The reason LR and others are in favor of torture is not because it works (the pros tell us it does not work), the reason is that Lr and Co. want to hit somebody out of revenge. They want other people to feel their pain, they want to lash out in an attempt to FEEL like something is being done, even if it is counterproductive. See how fast they dropped the theory of "Hearts and Minds". We will not win the hearts and minds of the Islamic world with pictures of Abu Graib, waterboarding or the kidnapping of innocent men. We MAY win it by being better than Saddam, by setting a better example for the world.

Posted by crabwalk at 05/23/2009 @ 09:58am
Posted by lrjones4 at 05/23/2009 @ 08:51am

In other words, it's selfish until I die for my beliefs. Interesting argument, and a convenient one for you, since the people that can legitimately, in your view, argue the point are all dead.

It is also interesting because you make statements like, "leads them to ignore the death and suffering that might come to others" while seemingly ignoring the very real death and suffering that comes from the torture you are advocating. I think you need to explain why possible suffering trumps real suffering - and do so in a way that addresses the real scenario of the actual number of people impacted by the policy of torture.

In addition, you appear to be making the argument that being for torture is the position of the "compassionate, thinking person's mind" without explaining how you got there. I have to say, I find this position...counter-intuitive. Given all the arguments based on the belief that other people know more about the situation and you are going to uncritically support their moral assessment in the face of a thorny moral problem, the inability to point to actual examples that illustrate the possibilities and probabilities your position relies upon, and the use of phrases like "harsh techniques" that you wouldn't hesitate to call torture if they were applied to you or the people you care about, I have to question both the compassion and the thinking of this position.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/23/2009 @ 11:18am
Posted by crabwalk at 05/23/2009 @ 09:48am

You've brought in a number of good points into this discussion. I think the problem of misleading information that uses up scarce investigative resources is particularly good.

The weird thing, for me, is that people favoring torture don't have or use the facts that would support their position. If I wanted to use a ticking time bomb argument, show it is more than a thought experiment. They can't do it. Show that it was more effective in a given circumstance. They can't do it. Show some rationale that the results are more positive than negative. They inflate they good (oh, without this thousands would have died) and downplay the bad (it was only a few guys and I stand at my desk all day).

It's no different than saying you killed someone because he might have decided at some point, if he had lived, to kill you. Let's call that what it is...murder, not "enhanced defense tactics" or whatever. Same goes for torture.

Posted by srjenkins at 05/23/2009 @ 11:34am
I just happened to come across this. I thought lrjones might find it of interest.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/68643.html

Posted by srjenkins at 05/23/2009 @ 12:22pm

About the Authors

Adam Howard (Posts | Bio)
Ari Melber (Posts | Bio)
Ari Berman (Posts | Bio)
Betsy Reed (Posts | Bio)
Christopher Hayes (Posts | Bio)
Dave Zirin (Posts | Bio)
D.D. Guttenplan (Posts | Bio)
Emily Douglas (Posts | Bio)
Esther Kaplan (Posts | Bio)
Eyal Press (Posts | Bio)
Jon Wiener (Posts | Bio)
Laura Flanders (Posts | Bio)
Leslie Savan (Posts | Bio)
Maria Margaronis (Posts | Bio)
Melissa Harris-Lacewell (Posts | Bio)
Richard Kim (Posts | Bio)
Roane Carey (Posts | Bio)
Zephyr Teachout (Posts | Bio)

Pelosi or Cheney? Who's the Torturer in Chief?

posted by Laura Flanders on 05/19/2009 @ 09:26am

About the Authors

Adam Howard (Posts | Bio)

Ari Melber (Posts | Bio)

Ari Berman (Posts | Bio)

Betsy Reed (Posts | Bio)

Christopher Hayes (Posts | Bio)

Dave Zirin (Posts | Bio)

D.D. Guttenplan (Posts | Bio)

Emily Douglas (Posts | Bio)

Esther Kaplan (Posts | Bio)

Eyal Press (Posts | Bio)

Jon Wiener (Posts | Bio)

Laura Flanders (Posts | Bio)

Leslie Savan (Posts | Bio)

Maria Margaronis (Posts | Bio)

Melissa Harris-Lacewell (Posts | Bio)

Richard Kim (Posts | Bio)

Roane Carey (Posts | Bio)

Zephyr Teachout (Posts | Bio)

Archives

» The Beat

» Editor's Cut

» The Notion

» Act Now!

» The Dreyfuss Report

» Altercation

Pelosi or Cheney? Who's the Torturer in Chief?

posted by Laura Flanders on 05/19/2009 @ 09:26am

Share this article

About the Authors

Adam Howard (Posts | Bio)

Ari Melber (Posts | Bio)

Ari Berman (Posts | Bio)

Betsy Reed (Posts | Bio)

Christopher Hayes (Posts | Bio)

Dave Zirin (Posts | Bio)

D.D. Guttenplan (Posts | Bio)

Emily Douglas (Posts | Bio)

Esther Kaplan (Posts | Bio)

Eyal Press (Posts | Bio)

Jon Wiener (Posts | Bio)

Laura Flanders (Posts | Bio)

Leslie Savan (Posts | Bio)

Maria Margaronis (Posts | Bio)

Melissa Harris-Lacewell (Posts | Bio)

Richard Kim (Posts | Bio)

Roane Carey (Posts | Bio)

Zephyr Teachout (Posts | Bio)

Archives

» The Beat

» Editor's Cut

» The Notion

» Act Now!

» The Dreyfuss Report

» Altercation