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RedditDick Cheney and I have had our differences.
I wrote a book suggesting that he was perhaps not the worthiest vice president in our nation's history. I wrote another book suggesting that he was perhaps the worthiest of targets for an impeachment inquiry.
I do not frequently suggest that the former vice president is right. But he is right to call for further disclosure of documents regarding interrogation policy under the Bush administration.
Yes, yes, let's get it all out.
Let's release all the memorandums, all the electronic files, all the loose papers relating to the plotting and implementation of the wide-ranging torture regimen that Cheney and President Bush appear to have implemented.
Cheney is making a lot of new allies with his call.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that forced last week's release of some but not all of the documents, is cheering Cheney on.
"Mr. Cheney is correct to propose that the public should have more information about the CIA's torture program, but disclosure should be comprehensive. The new administration should begin by declassifying documents that would shed light on the role of Mr. Cheney and other senior Bush administration officials in authorizing that program," says Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project.
Jaffer went on to note that:
"For eight years, Mr. Cheney served as a cheerleader for torture, stating on national television that waterboarding was a 'no brainer' and encouraging CIA interrogators to 'work the dark side.' The public has a right to know the extent of Mr. Cheney's role in authorizing the CIA to use methods that the United States once prosecuted as war crimes. CIA interrogators who broke the law should be held accountable for their conduct, but it would be unacceptable if only CIA interrogators were held accountable for actions that were authorized by Mr. Cheney and other Bush administration officials."
So, yes, let's release all the documents Cheney wants to have made public.
And let's keep going.
Let's release all the materials that Cheney, as the primary proponent of secrecy during the Bush years, fought to withhold.
Where to begin? Why not at the beginning: with all the documents relating to the energy task force that Cheney headed at the start of the Bush-Cheney interregnum. When Cheney fought to keep those materials secret, Paul Krugman wrote: "What Mr. Cheney is defending, in other words, is a doctrine that makes the United States a sort of elected dictatorship: a system in which the president, once in office, can do whatever he likes, and isn't obliged to consult or inform either Congress or the public."
Now that the former vice president is preaching the gospel of transparency, let's make the rhetoric real and get the full story of Cheney's imperial vice presidency -- and its lawless excesses -- out of the lockbox and into the sunshine where it can be examined by a free press, the American people and their Congress.
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Cheney a hypocrite?
Say it ain't so Pa!
Release the documents that put him in a good light, keep those secret that may prove the innocence of others.
Classic.
Demand UAW take concessions, whine about the govt controlling business.
Call for assassination squads, whine about Chavez using bad words about Herr Bush.
Demand Iran stop nuclear power plants, reward Israel for occupying land and keeping secret arsenals.
Posted by crabwalk at 04/22/2009 @ 08:48am
Get off this inane kick about the energy task force.
Are liberals really that stupid or do they just try to convince us that they are?
Posted by antisocialist at 04/22/2009 @ 08:59am
Cheney - 2nd worst VP in the history of the country (Spiro was worse.)
Release everything - he wants 'transparency'? - let's start with everything he's tried to keep secret.
Posted by Lillian at 04/22/2009 @ 09:11am
I say let ACORN have secret meetings with the census dept.
Who would complain, Rev Larry? nah, he finds that kind of activity within reason.
Posted by crabwalk at 04/22/2009 @ 09:12am
That WOULD be ironic....and again show that if not the stereotype of "evil"...Cheney just isn't that smart!
Release it all....he EXPECTS it will vindicate him and absolve he and Dubya's lie that they "didn't torture" by saying "It's okay. They DID torture but it 'saved lives'."
Instead, ALL of it gets released and the things he STILL wants to be kept secret...get out too.
And he and his 18% Fan Club CAN'T object...because Obama is merely doing...what Cheney asked!
Posted by Mask at 04/22/2009 @ 09:22am
I thought this stuff absolutely had to stay classified? What happened? Is Cheney perhaps too liberal for those who wanted to keep these materials secret?
Posted by Thrawn at 04/22/2009 @ 09:31am
Who would complain, Rev Larry? nah, he finds that kind of activity within reason.
Posted by crabwalk at 04/22/2009 @ 09:12am
Name one impact on Americans that the Energy Task force could possibly have had on them? Hint-nothing.
Now, manipulate the census data and you complete change the electoral college for starters.
Posted by antisocialist at 04/22/2009 @ 09:40am
"Are liberals really that stupid or do they just try to convince us that they are?"
a federal judge ordered bush/cheney to reveal what happened during their many SECRET energy task force meetings in 2001. in those documents, there were huge portions censored. but what we do know, for example, is that cheney only sought out the input from oil, gas, electric utility and coal companies.
how stupid could liberals be to force them to reveal what happened behind closed doors?
and how stupid could liberals be to ask what those censored portions contained?
reverand larry: apologist for torture, corruption, greed and.....fascism. oh, and a beloved traitor to our country.
Posted by darladoon at 04/22/2009 @ 09:48am
"Name one impact on Americans that the Energy Task force could possibly have had on them? "
this is about the dumbest question i have heard. "could possibly have"? oh, i dunno, everything from seriously deleterious impacts on the environment, price fixing and price guaging (see Enron), land use, etc.
Posted by darladoon at 04/22/2009 @ 09:51am
cheney publicly stated right after 9.11 that government would "have to operate in the shadows." those were his EXACT words.
and now we know what that meant: crime.
Posted by darladoon at 04/22/2009 @ 09:52am
this is about the dumbest question i have heard. "could possibly have"? oh, i dunno, everything from seriously deleterious impacts on the environment, price fixing and price guaging (see Enron), land use, etc.
Posted by darladoon at 04/22/2009 @ 09:51am
Do you know who made the most money off the so-called Enron scandal selling electricity in California?
It was the Los Angeles Dept of Water & Power who sold excess throughout the state
name one impact on the environment
Name one case of price fixing.
It's been investigated over and over and nothing was found.
Furthermore, the Supreme Court upheld Cheney's right not to disclose the task force meeting info.
Posted by antisocialist at 04/22/2009 @ 10:09am
cheney publicly stated right after 9.11 that government would "have to operate in the shadows." those were his EXACT words.
and now we know what that meant: crime.
Posted by darladoon at 04/22/2009 @ 09:52am
Darla, your brain is fried from too much pot. you really are clueless.
Posted by antisocialist at 04/22/2009 @ 10:10am
"Name one case of price fixing. It's been investigated over and over and nothing was found"
antisocialist, you are living in some nether world between stupidity and utter surreality. enron COLLAPSED because of it. gray davis was RECALLED because of it. kenny lay died in PRISON because of it. and thousands of people LOST THEIR JOBS because of it.
"Furthermore, the Supreme Court upheld Cheney's right not to disclose the task force meeting info."
the precise opposite is true. the notes from the meetings are available ON-LINE, albeit with large portions censored.
"It was the Los Angeles Dept of Water & Power who sold excess throughout the state"
yeah, and? the LAPDWP is not exactly a "socialist" organization supported by tax revenue. they are a private utility, albeit with a mayor-appointed board (of mostly corporate hacks). PG&E, another private utility, did the same. so what's your point? enron sold power to THEM, 'cuz they had none of their own to sell. there were massive, state-wide blackouts, you know. and power is traded like any other commodity, on the market. and californians got screwed. and IN FACT, california got billions back from.......you guessed it.....price guaging.
Posted by darladoon at 04/22/2009 @ 10:28am
cheney is going DOWN. has anyone seen the latest memos? holy f*cking sh*t! bush and cheney ordered torture prior to a thorough legal review, prior to knowing that their techniques were used by the germans in WWII (bush didn't even know this) and by the n. korean communists (bush didn't know this either), and prior to getting any sort of clearance (even for the less harsh techniques).
ok, now it's all out in the open. the facts are as clear as day. bush and cheney are DOOMED. and when they walk into that prison cell, i'm going to be one happy camper.
Posted by darladoon at 04/22/2009 @ 10:33am
and how stupid could liberals be to ask what those censored portions contained?
reverand larry: apologist for torture, corruption, greed and.....fascism. oh, and a beloved traitor to our country.
Posted by darladoon at 04/22/2009 @ 09:48am
Here's what I imagine the cencored parts are:
VP Cheney: We all agree that technolcogy will lead to cleaner, more efficient methods of energy production, but until that time arrives, what are our vunerabilities.
Nuke CEO: What do you mean by vunerabilities?
VPC: Well clearly there is terrorism or attack by a hostile nation.
Nuke CEO: No shit! We ran an internal controls audit and found that [redacted] was an easy target for creating a toxic cloud of radio active gas.
VPC: But there are other methods America's enemies could use. For instance, if the Chinese started stockpiling crude oil, and timed it to coincide with hurricane season, they could cause gasoline disruptions in the US Southeast and raist the price of fuel to $4.50 per gallon in the months before the 2008 election.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/22/2009 @ 10:36am
Larry, did you READ this as you were writing it?????
"Name one impact on Americans that the Energy Task force could possibly have had on them?"----Posted by antisocialist at 04/22/2009 @ 09:40am
If it had no impact on Americans...why was Cheney wasting his time holding them?????
Posted by Mask at 04/22/2009 @ 10:36am
could someone please tell me how a national energy policy WOULDN'T directly or indirectly effect americans?
Posted by darladoon at 04/22/2009 @ 10:39am
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/22/2009 @ 10:36am
Yeah...that's ONE scenario. I can think of a few OTHER, more embarassing ones.
Posted by Mask at 04/22/2009 @ 10:39am
Posted by darladoon at 04/22/2009 @ 09:48am
Hey darla, you haven't weighed in on the current war between Mask and me. When I characterized the French as lacking ambition, then noted that "lack of ambition probably doesn't sound like much of an indictment to a habitual pot smoker" did you take that as an insult?
Did you believe Mask when he claimed I called you a "stupid pot head"? because I didn't. Apparently, he thinks the accurate and non-judgemental description "habitual pot smoker" is the exact same as the insult "stupid pot head."
Care to weigh in?
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/22/2009 @ 10:40am
yeah, and? the LAPDWP is not exactly a "socialist" organization supported by tax revenue. they are a private utility, albeit with a mayor-appointed board (of mostly corporate hacks). PG&E, another private utility, did the same. so what's your point? enron sold power to THEM, 'cuz they had none of their own to sell. there were massive, state-wide blackouts, you know. and power is traded like any other commodity, on the market. and californians got screwed. and IN FACT, california got billions back from.......you guessed it.....price guaging.
Posted by darladoon at 04/22/2009 @ 10:28am
Wrong on Cheney Court ruling
High Court Backs Vice President Energy Documents Shielded for Now
By Charles Lane Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, June 25, 2004; Page A01
The Supreme Court ordered a federal appeals court yesterday to give Vice President Cheney another chance to shield the internal workings of the 2001 energy policy task force he headed, all but ensuring that none of its alleged contacts with industry lobbyists will be aired before the November elections.
A 7 to 2 majority of the court said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit had not given due weight to the executive branch's need to be free of "vexatious litigation" when it ruled last year that it could not grant Cheney a special order blocking a federal district judge's order permitting two public interest groups to examine the task force's records.
Wrong on LADWP
<LADWP, the largest municipal utility in the nation, was established more than 100 years ago to deliver reliable, safe water and electricity supplies to some 3.8 million residents and businesses in Los Angeles.>
Enron did not sell to LADWP. they generate their own power.
Posted by antisocialist at 04/22/2009 @ 10:42am
If it had no impact on Americans...why was Cheney wasting his time holding them?????
Posted by Mask at 04/22/2009 @ 10:36am
Getting input is a good thing and it did help to give the president direction towards proposals to Congress. Therefore the real results that matter are already out in the open. Simply look at SOU addresses and proposals for legislation sent to Congress.
The rest of the stuff is more political posturing by Democrats.
Posted by antisocialist at 04/22/2009 @ 10:46am
Posted by antisocialist at 04/22/2009 @ 10:46am
So "giving the president direction towards proposals to Congres"...."has no impact on Americans"?
(Larry, please just admit you goofed and quit digging the hole deeper and deeper....we ALL know it!)
Posted by Mask at 04/22/2009 @ 10:49am
anti, you are (again) wrong on the LA water comp, and you (again) are wrong on cheney.
there was an appeal, and cheney was ultimately forced to release the notes in 2002. google 'cheney's energy task force' and you will see. the notes are as clear as day. the case you cite was before that.
"Enron did not sell to LADWP. they generate their own power."
no SHIT they generate their own power, you shit head! they are a fucking power company! BUT, and this is what you conveniently FORGET, they didn't HAVE enough power, because the state was suffering massive BLACKOUTS. so, that's where enron comes in. they SOLD power to california at RATES WELL ABOVE AVERAGE. and guess what? they suffered the consequences.
ever seen 'the smartest guys in the room'? it details the collapse in detail.
Posted by darladoon at 04/22/2009 @ 10:54am
Care to weigh in?
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/22/2009 @ 10:40am
no
Posted by darladoon at 04/22/2009 @ 10:55am
ok, now it's all out in the open. the facts are as clear as day. bush and cheney are DOOMED. and when they walk into that prison cell, i'm going to be one happy camper. Posted by darladoon
Ha ha ha ha ha ha Yeah right! Don't bogart that joint Darla!
Posted by abell12ct at 04/22/2009 @ 11:21am
Larry, if there is nothing to hide....
why not waterboard Cheney?
it is not torture, he has nothing to hide, ...
Posted by crabwalk at 04/22/2009 @ 11:53am
Larry has it exactly backwards, unless harm to the country can be shown by the release of the documents, they belong to the public. They were generated by a civil servant using public money.
The CEO's of the energy companies also lied to congress about meeting with Tricky Dick II.
Ps, I was harmed by ENRONs manipulation of energy markets. I traveled in California during the "rolling blackouts" and paid an "energy service fee" at every hotel I stayed at.
Posted by crabwalk at 04/22/2009 @ 12:00pm
Suppose Cheney had hidden some travel papers, which later reappeared on a table?
I remember that being quite an issue for the republicans, they talked a lot about ethics, cronyism, cover-ups and wrongful termination.
Then came the Bush 41 years, and they flip flopped to the House of Pancakes.
Posted by crabwalk at 04/22/2009 @ 12:09pm
OK Larry, say that ACORN has secret meetings with Joe Biden and the census division. They then come up with a plan and implement it.
You ask for minutes, records and lists of attendees.
You are denied.
How are you going to prove any harm?
Posted by crabwalk at 04/22/2009 @ 12:13pm
How blind, stupid or corrupt do you have to be to see the criminals sitting in front of us? Between the energy meetings, false-flag 911 and everything that followed, kidnapping, torture and our financial meltdown how much will it take? Just for the record, I hate both parties that have led us to this disgusting point. between the black-mailing of Congresspeople and the bullshit, deer-in-the-headlights Pelosi (third most powerful position, she is fond of saying)..it is all a cokked game and we are the useful idiots. If you went to Vegas and asked an odds-maker to set the odds of all of these events "just happening"...the odds would be astronomical, or non-existent....oh, and how convenient that WTC 7 went down and destroyed all those Enron Documents.....not even a blind soul would miss the connection of dots that says Dickie-boy managed 911 and everything that came after....with an ass-kissing, cock-sucking Congress who we now know for a fact was being wiretapped and blackmailed going right along. Hey, but that's okay because Mr. Hope & Change is going to fix it for us...right? Our country has been screwed since 1913 and the non-ratification of the 16th amendment...good luck fixing it...I'm moving to Ecuador..
Regards,
O'Guillory
Posted by OGuillory at 04/22/2009 @ 12:25pm
too many secrets. the welfare of mr. cheney and pals is NOT analagous to the welfare of the nation.
actually perhaps the opposite. secrets that protect lives are one thing. those that protect careers and reps are another.
Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/22/2009 @ 12:26pm
no
Posted by darladoon at 04/22/2009 @ 10:55am
That's fine.
I really didn't intend any disrespect or insult. Having Mask twist my words into "stupid pot head" wasn't unusual, but it did alert me to the possibility that you you might have been offended so when I apologized a few days ago if any offense was taken, I was being sincere.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/22/2009 @ 12:31pm
DICK CHENEY'S DAMAGE TO OUR NATIONAL SECURITY--WHAT EVERYONE SEEMS TO HAVE MISSED Beyond the question of release of classified intelligence documents by the Obama administration, there is a related issue everyone seems to have missed--Dick Cheney's irreparable damage to our national security. Cheney extols the virtue of tortue as a means of obtaining needed information--a kind of end justifies the means argument. After all said and done, we will at some point try to bring many of these detainees to American justice. That, indeed, has created an undenyable dilemma for the Obama administration: how to bring detainees to justice without denying them a fair opportunity to defend themselves as allowed in our system of justice. Because the most damning evidence against them might have been obtained by duress and torture, would such evidence be admissible in a credible court system? If they are not, would you let these criminals go free? Even the little information that might have been obtained would prove useless under the strict rules of American jurisprudence. The Republican approach is to keep detainees at Gitmo indefinitely. Such an approach would keep the dark clouds of the Bush-Cheney years continually hanging over our head like the mythical sword of Darmocles. I feel able to argue that torture of detainees has not only sullied our reputation abroad but has made America less secure!
Posted by drsam8 at 04/22/2009 @ 1:33pm
"I apologized a few days ago if any offense was taken, I was being sincere."----Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/22/2009 @ 12:31pm
Why did you need to apologize if it was so obvious I was "twisting your words"?!?!??????!?
Posted by Mask at 04/22/2009 @ 1:34pm
Name one impact on Americans that the Energy Task force could possibly have had on them?
Posted by antisocialist at 04/22/2009 @ 09:40am
4274.......
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/22/2009 @ 1:37pm
Darla, your brain is fried from too much pot. you really are clueless.
Posted by antisocialist at 04/22/2009 @ 10:10am
Larry, your heart is fried from too much death. you really are soulless.
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/22/2009 @ 1:45pm
larry, this sure is beautiful, Ώright?
http://www.chrisjordan.com/images/current2/1213387975.jpg
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/22/2009 @ 1:55pm
how about a close up?
http://www.chrisjordan.com/images/current2/1213388942.jpg
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/22/2009 @ 1:56pm
gettin' closer.....
http://www.chrisjordan.com/images/current2/1213388112.jpg
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/22/2009 @ 1:57pm
ah, ha! cheney was right!
http://www.chrisjordan.com/images/current2/1213389163.jpg
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/22/2009 @ 1:58pm
It would be interesting to see if there is firm evidence proving that excessive force, or torture during interrogation actually prevented another attack on US soil and the deaths of innocent americans.
I'm not confident most americans today would think, "how awful, it doesn't matter that lives were saved, torture is wrong!"
But, this isn't really about torture at all. It is about politics and power and hypocrisy.
Posted by freiheit1 at 04/22/2009 @ 1:59pm
just be prepared for a lot of disappointment in your life....forever.
Posted by Mask at 04/22/2009 @ 07:49am
so, how are things going over there in happyland?
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/22/2009 @ 2:04pm
But, this isn't really about torture at all.
Posted by freiheit1 at 04/22/2009 @ 1:59pm
it is for sane people.
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/22/2009 @ 2:05pm
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/22/2009 @ 2:04pm
Not sure...but have I given the impression I think everything is hunky-dory?
Or just that I'm realistic and not saying "If I don't get everything I want..and RIGHT NOW...not just 'better than it was by miles'...I'm going to throw a tantrum"?
Posted by Mask at 04/22/2009 @ 2:19pm
better by miles?
i think you'd better explain to your kids who president blankfein is.
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/22/2009 @ 2:36pm
oh, and don't forget vice-president liddy and secretary of moolah pandit.
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/22/2009 @ 2:39pm
RAPTOR!
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/22/2009 @ 2:59pm
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/22/2009 @ 2:39pm
Let me help....
"I want a ball I want a party Pink macaroons and a million balloons And performing baboons and ... Give it to me Rrhh rhhh Now!
I want the world I want the whole world I want to lock it all up in my pocket It's my bar of chocolate Give it to me Now!
I want today I want tomorrow I want to wear 'em like braids in my hair And I don't want to share 'em
I want a party with room fulls of laughter Ten thousand tons of ice cream And if I don't get the things I am after I'm going to scream!
I want the works I want the whole works Presents and prizes and sweets and surprises Of all shapes and sizes And now Don't care how I want it now Don't care how I want it now"
Posted by Mask at 04/22/2009 @ 3:00pm
911 caused by vengeance -- Torture causes vengeance
Cheney tells us that torture increases national security, but why then did Obama request an additional 83 billion for the military? A total of 1.4 trillion for the military if hidden expenses are added such as interest on debt, and an increase of 103 billion over last year. And at a time when both Russia and China are trading partners most friendly.
For a little soul searching is needed, as we caused 911 by allowing insane presidents to do war insanity in our name. For we have been fully aware that rich corporations in the war materials industry finance elections and hand pick war monger presidents. For they dearly love enhanced interrogation as it enhances anger against us, which enhances war, profit and self-glory. For CIA goons committing torture, this has been a news item on many occasions since I fought in the Vietnam War.
For if we did not have the CIA, then they could not have murdered a dozen presidents such as those of Iran and Brazil, could not have destroyed over 100 democratic governments and organizations, and could not have deceitfully lied to us about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction.
Just savor the thought of it, no CIA causing the world to detest us, and no wars in Korea, Vietnam, Palestine, Afghanistan or Iraq. And no national debt to destroy our children's happiness.
Posted by Alabama.John at 04/22/2009 @ 3:00pm
Hmm, no CIA, you're right, that does make sense. We really don't need to gather intelligence about what other countries are doing, do we? We can trust them absolutely.
Posted by Thrawn at 04/22/2009 @ 3:21pm
There's LOTSA agencies gathering intel out there that aren't the CIA.
Posted by schnellerheinz at 04/22/2009 @ 3:23pm
Do you guys know what the trouble with Kant is? He doesn't understand the concept of "paradox".
The whole idea of the categorical imperative is that in order to be moral, one must universally will that all people in that situation would behave in the same way. So it is completely objective and devoid of self-interest, as if self-interest is inherently sinful.
But it starts with a faulty premise. That premise is that in every situation, there must be at least one moral choice. Life doesn't come with a guarantee. God does not guarantee you at least one acceptable moral choice in every situation. Men can conspire to create a situation and force you in it so that every action and every choice of inaction is morally reprehensible.
Of course torture is morally reprehensible, but so is allowing the deaths of innocents to assuage your moral vanity.
It is also morally reprehensible to project an image of utter weakness to invite these attacks. I posted the article yester that said two of the terrorists who were water-boarded expressed contempt for the US because they believed the US lacked the will to defend itself.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/22/2009 @ 3:28pm
mask,
stop with the puerile nonsense.
geithner, summers et. al are robbing you blind.
that is not a tantrum.
it's the truth.
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/22/2009 @ 3:31pm
Sorry, meant to post that on the Feingold thread.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/22/2009 @ 3:32pm
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/22/2009 @ 3:28pm
Darin, shouldn't we be a LITTLE suspicious that that guys telling us that "the torture SAVED LIVES!"...
are the same guys who authorized it and would be held criminally responsible????
Posted by Mask at 04/22/2009 @ 3:43pm
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/22/2009 @ 3:31pm
FROSTY, you're never going to be satisfied until Ralph Nader becomes our President and Peter Bevan-Baker becomes your Prime Minister....never.
Posted by Mask at 04/22/2009 @ 3:45pm
Darin, shouldn't we be a LITTLE suspicious that that guys telling us that "the torture SAVED LIVES!"...
are the same guys who authorized it and would be held criminally responsible????
Posted by Mask at 04/22/2009 @ 3:43pm
Why do you think they authorized it? Do you think it was their intent to save lives?
Or are you the typcial Nation reader: "You know those Republicans. They get thier jollies torturing brown people"?
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/22/2009 @ 3:54pm
Let's put ALL the documents on the table. In other words, let's CALL CHENEY'S BLUFF.
"Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll," I haven't the time to argue with you now in great detail about Immanuel Kant, but you are mischaracterizing his categorical imperative. The root of your error is your assumption that Kant believed self-interest is evil. He didn't. He believed it should be universalized.
The closest Kant came to separating self-interest from morality was to judge the same moral act differently according to the degree to which it conflicts with self-interest. For example, if you are billionaire and you find a wallet full of money and hand it over to the police, you are less moral, in Kant's judgement, than if you are a low-income person and you do the same thing, because the conflict with self-interest is greater in the second case.
The reason it is generally moral to try to find the owner of a lost wallet, regardless of our personal income, is that we all agree that this is what we would like others to do with OUR OWN wallets. This is the universalization of self-interest, not its negation.
Posted by JakobFabian at 04/22/2009 @ 3:58pm
"We had to destroy the nation's principles in order to save them." Well, that's a paraphrase anyway.
Posted by theo51 at 04/22/2009 @ 4:42pm
Oh, I know, when our guys torture its because they think the are doing it for a Good Cause ; when the enemy tortures the know they are doing it for a Very Bad Cause. Something like that.
Posted by theo51 at 04/22/2009 @ 4:46pm
FROSTY, you're never going to be satisfied until Ralph Nader becomes our President and Peter Bevan-Baker becomes your Prime Minister....never.
Posted by Mask at 04/22/2009 @ 3:45pm
are you satisfied?
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/22/2009 @ 5:39pm
are you satisfied?
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/22/2009 @ 5:39pm
After Dubya?.....yes
Posted by Mask at 04/22/2009 @ 5:42pm
After Dubya?.....yes
Posted by Mask at 04/22/2009 @ 5:42pm
explain that to your kids.
i think you need to read a little more about economics.
seems like mr. obama's pulled the tarp over your eyes.
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/22/2009 @ 5:46pm
After Dubya?.....yes
Posted by Mask at 04/22/2009 @ 5:42pm
i guess you'd be satisfied with tuberculosis after cancer....
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/22/2009 @ 5:48pm
Doesn't Cheney make you feel safe? Why does he have to keep telling us that, then?
Posted by debrae at 04/22/2009 @ 6:05pm
<i>Posted by schnellerheinz at 04/22/2009 @ 3:23pm </i>
Other US agencies systematically gathering intelligence abroad? Like whom?
Posted by Thrawn at 04/22/2009 @ 6:21pm
Darla, your brain is fried from too much pot. you really are clueless. Posted by antisocialist at 04/22/2009 @ 10:10am
C'mom anti... that's twice this week.
This from the archives.....(legalize hemp thread)
So.... did anti inhale? Inquiring minds wanna know. Posted by ficheye at 04/17/2009 @ 6:04pm
too much and too often Posted by antisocialist at 04/17/2009 @ 9:45pm
Posted by ficheye at 04/22/2009 @ 6:49pm
Other US agencies systematically gathering intelligence abroad? Like whom?
Posted by Thrawn at 04/22/2009 @ 6:21pm | ignore this person | warn this person
Department of Defense (includes NSA and DIA, and the various armed forces intelligence branches) U.S. State Department Federal Bureau of Investigation Drug Enforcement Administration
Posted by schnellerheinz at 04/22/2009 @ 7:36pm
From State Department Website:
Civil Service Employment
International and Domestic Security:
Protect America at home and abroad as you GATHER INFORMATION ON TERRORIST INCIDENTS and other criminal activities that pose potential threats; conduct background investigations and investigate passport and visa fraud; or protect U.S. and overseas employees, property, buildings and information against terrorists, foreign intelligence and criminals.
Intelligence Analyst This is an ideal opportunity to utilize your expertise in a specific functional area or geographic region. Analysts at the U.S. Department of State advise, perform research and provide analysis in support of the formulation and direction of foreign policy. Other analysts gather information on terrorist incidents and other criminal activities to determine potential threats to our employees and facilities.
Criminal Investigator Choose a career in the protection of America. Our investigators are qualified to carry weapons, have arrest authority and provide a variety of security functions. Your responsibilities could range from conducting background investigations on personnel, to passport and visa fraud investigations, counterintelligence, and other criminal investigations. Other responsibilities could also include investigating alleged espionage incidents and conducting damage assessments.
Security Specialist Take on the vital job of protecting U.S. and OVERSEAS personnel, property, buildings and information against terrorists, foreign intelligence agents and criminals. You will develop and implement comprehensive security programs and procedures; and educate our employees on counterintelligence and vulnerabilities that might be exploited by foreign intelligence.
Posted by schnellerheinz at 04/22/2009 @ 7:47pm
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/22/2009 @ 5:48pm
If it WAS TB...and it was terminal cancer. If it was pneumonia...more so.
Posted by Mask at 04/22/2009 @ 8:28pm
http://www.fbi.gov/contact/legat/history.htm
(FBI overseas intel branch)
Posted by schnellerheinz at 04/22/2009 @ 8:32pm
I thought this stuff absolutely had to stay classified? What happened? Is Cheney perhaps too liberal for those who wanted to keep these materials secret?
Posted by Thrawn at 04/22/2009 @ 09:31am
Ha Ha I think you also see the irony.
But it really could destroy the only legitimate argument against harsh interrogation.
All of us, except perhaps psychopaths, are against torture in the abstract but if the torture of one or two persons was responsible for saving tens, hundreds or thousands of non combatant or otherwise innocent lives then the moral argument against torture dissolves.
The best argument against torture is not a moral one, for it could be argued it would be immoral not to torture in this case but rather that torture does not produce accurate or good intelligence.
Liberals whatever else they are, are not stupid so if it can be shown, as Cheney claims, that "torture" produced intelligence that prevented a significant number of innocent lives then the argument against well directed torture Bush-Cheney style fails.
Posted by lrjones4 at 04/22/2009 @ 9:22pm
...the deaths of a sig...
Posted by lrjones4 at 04/22/2009 @ 9:26pm
<i>Posted by schnellerheinz at 04/22/2009 @ 7:47pm </i>
None of what you've provided is sufficient answer. True, other departments are involved in the intelligence business, but to suggest that their roles duplicate to any reasonable degree what the CIA does is laughable. Most of the State Department positions you list, for instance, ANALYZE intelligence. Where do you think it comes from? You can't seriously think the State Department has its own fully-developed intelligence apparatus with a capacity to even remotely rival the CIA.
And the DEA, seriously? You think the DEA has agents in foreign countries monitoring their activities??
Moreover, wholly apart from that, part of my response to the other poster (implicitly, anyway) was that even if they shouldn't be doing the kind of covert operations they often have (disastrous results have tended to follow), that's not an indictment of intelligence work anyway.
Posted by Thrawn at 04/22/2009 @ 9:36pm
#
RAPTOR!
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/22/2009 @ 2:59pm | ignore this person | warn this person
you keep saying that...
that was a damn good plane!
Posted by dexter666 at 04/22/2009 @ 9:46pm
Thrawn, you keep shoving all these additional qualifiers at people.
It started out oh so simple. You couldn't RESIST a chance to be sarcastic to Alabama.
Then, it was whether other agencies existed, which gather intel abroad.
Shown clearly that there are, now, that's not enough. It has to be now about the these ever-shifting sands of qualifiers and add-ins, relative strengths and successes, etc, etc, etc.
It stands. There is more than one agency gathering intelligence abroad. Period.
I, myself, to some degree, value interagency rivalries as it avoids overconcentrations of power. It's expensive and probably ineffecient. but it's what we've got.
Posted by schnellerheinz at 04/22/2009 @ 9:46pm
P.S. You needn't be overseas, to gather intel overseas.
Posted by schnellerheinz at 04/22/2009 @ 9:58pm
Yes, and release the list of owners of the super private, private equity firm, that sold war on a cracker to the crackers, the one that feeds Larry, Happy, Comanche, Rio and all these sloth fungi hairball dittoheads their lines, the Hicks etc that bought Clear Channel, the one that in a previous form launched GW Bush: "Clear Channel Vice Chair Thomas Hicks purchased the Texas Rangers baseball team in 1998 in a lucrative deal that made then-Texas governor and Rangers part owner George W. Bush a multi-millionaire" and became the Limbaugh (hannitysavageboortzoreilly)-Cheney platform.
Posted by winyahn at 04/23/2009 @ 12:08am
that was a damn good plane! Posted by dexter666 at 04/22/2009 @ 9:46pm
sell your television.
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/23/2009 @ 01:36am
Name one impact on Americans that the Energy Task force could possibly have had on them?
Posted by antisocialist at 04/22/2009 @ 09:40am
Well that's a simple thing to figure out. If it didn't have an impact, why is it censored? If there is no impact possible then why bother going through the trouble of censoring it? Just let it all hang out. Obviously there is something there they don't want to see that is impactful.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/23/2009 @ 05:47am
And he and his 18% Fan Club CAN'T object...because Obama is merely doing...what Cheney asked!
Posted by Mask at 04/22/2009 @ 09:22am
Ten to one says that if there is a special prosecutor looking into all of this torture business and any formidable evidence could be used against anyone in the Bush administration for possible criminal prosecution....and the prosecution against the defendent is successful, Obama will pardon the offenses.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 04/23/2009 @ 07:18am
Name one impact on Americans that the Energy Task force could possibly have had on them? Hint-nothing.
Now, manipulate the census data and you complete change the electoral college for starters.
Posted by antisocialist at 04/22/2009 @ 09:40am
Oh how your lame memory elludes you. Do you not remember the Enron scandal? You know, an energy company faking power outages to boost energy rates and screw people of multiple states over?
How about the deregulation of the energy companies? What about the nuclear industry (from other countries no less) having closed door chats deciding how much tax payers should fund their little endeavors?
Pull your head out Rev.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 04/23/2009 @ 07:25am
The ons are ASSUMING that what Cheney says about attacks being foiled is true.
Awful big ASS U mption.
his fellow fear mongers told us a lot of things that were not true, he has told us things that were not true. Would you buy a New York bridge from him? Yopu bought several that span the Euphrates, at cost plus, with no clear title.
Some of Cheneys lies, obfuscations and misleading comments-http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/26-6
"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."-Cheney
With exquisite timing, Cheney's bombastic pronouncements about the torture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and its supposed value coincided with the publication, in Vanity Fair, of an article by David Rose, in which a number of senior officials from both the FBI and the CIA directly refuted Cheney's claims. The article, which is worth reading in its entirety, focused primarily on the torture of Abu Zubaydah, Binyam Mohamed and Jose Padilla , but there were also key insights into the torture of KSM. 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."
Posted by crabwalk at 04/23/2009 @ 07:44am
After a half-hearted and RIDICULOUS attempt to defend (Posted by antisocialist at 04/22/2009 @ 09:40am) and the claim that the Energy Task Force had "no impact" on Americans....
I don't think Larry will make a re-appearance on this thread. LOL
Posted by Mask at 04/23/2009 @ 08:01am
Like figuring out what the Russians and Chinese, two peoples who will never feel the way you do about "peace, love, and understanding", are on about?
Come on Thrawn, you're better than that. Do you know anyone from China or Russia personally? They are the same as you or me. People are people anywhere you go.
Extremist religions and cults get people to do their dirty work for them and usually business propositions lie at the root of these religious cults and extremist positions.
Most people just want to survive the best they can. The ones causing the most problems in the world are the ones who believe that there is no limit to that which they should own. In short, if you truly want to see the enemy, we may be it.
The CIA is just an agency that does the bidding of the powers that be. It, in and of itself is not evil, but put the wrong people in charge of it and it can be used for purposes other than what it was origianlly intended for. Those purposed were supposed to be for the security of the U.S., not producing intel to back W and Cheney's wish to go to war in Iraq to get at Iraq's oil and break up the ME at the same time.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 04/23/2009 @ 08:09am
Posted by snowball666 at 04/23/2009 @ 08:06am
"The best argument against torture is not a moral one, ... rather that torture does not produce accurate or good intelligence."
But when you can make BOTH arguments, and more about the effects on the torturers, the scales should begin to tip, don't you think? "
The argument is proportionality one.
Of course the assumption has to be that torture does produce accurate and actionable intelligence. Given that, then there is only one argument, which is the moral one. And depending on the ratio of the number of tortured+torturers to the number of innocent non-combatants (combatants may lead to something like a "moral" scaling) we can start thinking about whether it is more moral to torture or to let (or cause?) large numbers of innocents die. That is where the proportionality argument comes into play.
However that still leaves a bit of a difficulty and that is that a person who has no relevant life saving intelligence may be subjected to torture. So perhaps along with the information about the currently claimed actionable intelligence that (potentially) saved many lives we also need to know how those subjected to torture are selected and others rejected. Maybe that is more where a moral argument of sorts lies, given we are not prepared to torture those who have no life saving intelligence.
If it can be shown unequivocally, by a release of the CIA data, that many lives have (potentially) been saved, only by the use of harsh interrogation methods, then far from going down a slippery Nazi like slope the CIA operatives and their masters are bloody heroes.
(As a footnote, is a torturer much different from say a professional boxer who beats another human to a bloody, broken pulp in a sporting event also with doctors on hand?)
Posted by lrjones4 at 04/23/2009 @ 09:28am
Posted by lrjones4 at 04/23/2009 @ 09:28am
JONES, if it could be shown that summary executions, not trials or tribunals, had "potentially saved lives"....would you defend it?
Posted by Mask at 04/23/2009 @ 09:35am
JONES, if it could be shown that summary executions, not trials or tribunals, had "potentially saved lives"....would you defend it?
Posted by Mask at 04/23/2009 @ 09:35am
If you show me, by a decent argument, how summary executions are the best way of saving lives, I will not only be amazed, because it seems to be a quick way of killing people but also try to give you an intelligent response.
But the context here is really not a summary execution but a well planned psychological operation in which a sensation of being drowned is used to try to get life saving intelligence from the subject of that exercise.
As you know the premier argument against such information gathering methods is that accurate actionable intelligence is never gained this way. At present there are a few people , who claim be in the know, telling us that some of these harsh interrogation techniques, including simulated drowning, have been very successful in getting potential life saving intelligence. We won't know if that claim is true until that information is freely made available.
Posted by lrjones4 at 04/23/2009 @ 10:09am
So.... did anti inhale? Inquiring minds wanna know. Posted by ficheye at 04/17/2009 @ 6:04pm
too much and too often Posted by antisocialist at 04/17/2009 @ 9:45pm
Posted by ficheye at 04/22/2009 @ 6:49pm
The difference is that I quit 30 years ago.
Posted by antisocialist at 04/23/2009 @ 10:13am
Posted by lrjones4 at 04/23/2009 @ 10:09am
Well, 1. If we captured Osama bin Laden, which, in your view, would be the "safer option"-
A. Imprison him. Allow him the possibility of escape. Allow him the possibility of indoctrination of fellow prisoners. Allow him to become a target of further terrorism, i.e. "Release OBL or we blow up this ocean liner".
B. Kill him immediately and bury his body in an unmarked grave so as to remove any possibility of martyrdom.
?
(BTW, after the 5th or 50th time, doesn't the "psychological impact" of waterboarding diminish, given the "receiver" has figured out that they are NOT going to be drowned???)
Posted by Mask at 04/23/2009 @ 10:17am
Well that's a simple thing to figure out. If it didn't have an impact, why is it censored? If there is no impact possible then why bother going through the trouble of censoring it? Just let it all hang out. Obviously there is something there they don't want to see that is impactful.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/23/2009 @ 05:47am
argumentum ad ignorantiam
look it up..it fits you (and many others here)
Posted by antisocialist at 04/23/2009 @ 10:20am
I don't think Larry will make a re-appearance on this thread. LOL
Posted by Mask at 04/23/2009 @ 08:01am
I'm out of town with limited access to the internet.
I never back off. When I was young, I would take any dare, even if it involved something that I feared (like heights in my case).
Surely my consistent presence here over 4 years now should be evidence Mask that I'm not afraid to get in a brawl.
Posted by antisocialist at 04/23/2009 @ 10:23am
Release everything -- release all of it.
There is so much that we don't know. Americans have the right and need to know every last, little dirty detai.
We are still a government "of the people, by the people and for the people", in spite of what many want us to believe.
Posted by GraceD at 04/23/2009 @ 10:31am
Posted by snowball666 at 04/23/2009 @ 10:07am
"I won't try to box you in with extrapolation as Mask has above, but I think you'd be better served with an attack on my false equivalence of 'extreme interrogation' and 'Nazi methods' than by your own of 'involuntary torture' with a consentual 'sporting event'; people get tatoos and nipple rings which I'm positive cause more anguish than waterboarding and pay handsomely to do so, but its their choice"
Tripple6 I was not thinking of the recipient of the clobbering. He is covered by proportionality where it can be shown to exist. So I had the torturer in view.
The consensual clobberer i.e. the consensual torturer, rather than the clobbered was in my view because I thought you were arguing that the consensual torturer was being demeaned or degraded by his work. My suggestion is that there are things like professional boxing or say bull fighting, with all its vicious cruelty which degrades the perpetrator far more in its aimless cruelty than a harsh non life threatening interrogation method which has a worthwhile goal.
Which goal of course must or can only be grounded legitimately in the argument of proportion.
Posted by lrjones4 at 04/23/2009 @ 10:32am
It's precisely because Cheney still thinks that nothing will come of it - ie., any charges against him or any other Bush official - that he says let out all the files. He still believes he's untouchable.
The saddest part is that he may be right.
Posted by besserwisser at 04/23/2009 @ 10:43am
Well, 1. If we captured Osama bin Laden, which, in your view, would be the "safer option"-
A. Imprison him. Allow him the possibility of escape. Allow him the possibility of indoctrination of fellow prisoners. Allow him to become a target of further terrorism, i.e. "Release OBL or we blow up this ocean liner".
B. Kill him immediately and bury his body in an unmarked grave so as to remove any possibility of martyrdom.
?
(BTW, after the 5th or 50th time, doesn't the "psychological impact" of waterboarding diminish, given the "receiver" has figured out that they are NOT going to be drowned???)
Posted by Mask at 04/23/2009 @ 10:17am
You're a funny bloke Mask. To be honest I'm buggered if I know but if you like I'll take your list to the next party I go to you and see if I can get any help.
BTW I've heard ObL is already tuning his harp so you could ask Allah to kick him down to hell.
Whoops forgot Mask. You were an atheist but now an agnostic.
Would you like me to:
C (i) Petition Allah for you?
C (ii)Whilst in conversation ask HIM to ask ObL who he hates most, Bush or Obama?
C(iii) Ask Allah if Sarah Palin will get up in 2012?
Keep em coming Mask. I'm here to help.
Posted by lrjones4 at 04/23/2009 @ 10:49am
JONES, if it could be shown that summary executions, not trials or tribunals, had "potentially saved lives"....would you defend it?
Posted by Mask at 04/23/2009 @ 09:35am
I would. But it can't.
Intertwined in the discussion of the moraltiy of smashing some enemy combatatent's testicals with a hammer is the morality of gambling. You can't know a priori whether pain or raping of a loved one sleep deprivation will work. You can't even know whether the terrorist has information that is valuable.
I don't care.
That's my problem with Kant. You can't know a priori whether telling a lie will save your friend from Kant's hypothetical murderer. So Kant's immature answer to tell the murderer the truth, and when you attend your friend's funeral console yourself by reminding yourself that telling the murderer where he was was the moral thing to do.
If my job is to protect Americans and I reasonably believe that smashing a terrorist's nuts with a hammer will save the lives of Americans, then that's what I'm going to do.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 11:05am
Posted by antisocialist at 04/23/2009 @ 10:23am
Cool....so again, energy policy has no impact on Americans???
Posted by Mask at 04/23/2009 @ 11:24am
Dick Cheney is 100% right. Why has Obama not released the memos that show how successful these interrogations were. See analysis: http://www.thebarackobamawatch.com/TERRORISM.html
Posted by nycusa055 at 04/23/2009 @ 11:26am
Presumably they are weeded from the program fairly early and anyone who will kill for his country is probably prepared for torture for it too, but what of the torturer of the innocent man?
Do you thinks he rests easy when it turns out he tortured a man for useless intel that DIDN'T prevent Bali or Mumbai?
Posted by snowball666 at 04/23/2009 @ 10:43am
All interesting issues Triple6 but perhaps we will only get real answers to those questions if we get a bit more inside info from the practitioners. It would be instructive to get an interrogator's perspective on these issues. Perhaps the ACLU could do us another favour and get some pertinent info.
I think you said that the techniques used to get intelligence were not as painful as many other things we inflict upon ourselves in the normal course of our lives. I mean we are not talking about those horrific instruments of torture of a bye-gone era you introduced us to.
The violation of personal sovereignty is an interesting issue to raise in this context but what in fact does it mean? How much sovereignty do we really have even in a democratic society governed by law? Going down the scale how much sovereignty does a shackled prisoner have and so on? Surely it is only a matter of gradation and almost meaningless in the context of one already in the absolute control of his captors or guards.
Posted by lrjones4 at 04/23/2009 @ 11:26am
Keep em coming Mask. I'm here to help.-----Posted by lrjones4 at 04/23/2009 @ 10:49am
Actually, you didn't answer my question...did you?
Posted by Mask at 04/23/2009 @ 11:26am
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 11:05am
Neither did you. Given the fairly reasonable scenario I laid out....would you support the summary execution of Osama bin Laden in the field after capture?
Posted by Mask at 04/23/2009 @ 11:28am
Posted by snowball666 at 04/23/2009 @ 10:59am
Thank you. I'll sleep well knowing Allah answers prayer (2.30am here).
Posted by lrjones4 at 04/23/2009 @ 11:33am
I never back off.
Posted by antisocialist at 04/23/2009 @ 10:23am
one more narcissistic trait you exhibit.
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/23/2009 @ 11:34am
Actually, you didn't answer my question...did you?
Posted by Mask at 04/23/2009 @ 11:26am
i wonder where he learned that.....
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/23/2009 @ 11:35am
Now off to jail with you. ;)
Posted by snowball666 at 04/23/2009 @ 11:15am
Do you remember the pro-abortions movie, "The Cider House Rules" with Michael Caine?
The moral of the story is that when the people writing the rules don't have a fucking clue what they are talking about, you can ignore the rules.
When a bunch of people with laws degrees from Harvard are writing the rules, you can ignore them.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 12:02pm
It's precisely because Cheney still thinks that nothing will come of it - ie., any charges against him or any other Bush official - that he says let out all the files. He still believes he's untouchable.
The saddest part is that he may be right.
Posted by besserwisser at 04/23/2009 @ 10:43am
I can understand why this is so offensive to you.
I think an appropriate analogy is to imagine Dick Cheney as a good ol' southern sheriff down in Alabama. A black man is suspected of raping and murdering a white woman, but Sheriff Dick doesn't have any evidence. So he simple tells the angry mob that he thinks Cleetis did it, but he doesn't have any proof.
So the angry mob goes to Cleetis's house and strings him up. And when Sheriff Dick shows up, he opens the dresser drawer and finds a video tape. And it's a tape of Cleetis raping the dead woman.
Sheriff Dick is correct: nobody can touch him because in the eyes of the community, he's a hero because he was right and he is keeping them safe.
And even the Gregory-Peck-looking-type dude named Atticus Finch knows he can't do shit. Atticus was the hero because he was a cautionary tale against the mod making mistakes.
When there are laws in place to protect the accused from mistakes, the community doesn't care when the laws are broken so long as there is no question you didn't make a mistake.
That is why Sheriff Dick want's the memos released, because he was right.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 12:29pm
Oh the analogy is inapt in a number of instances as well.
The first has to do with power. The accused in "To Kill A Mockingbird" was a completely powerless individual who was the subject of racial discrimination.
The number 3 guy in Al Queda is a military person who has successfully executed military strikes against the united states of America.
And of course, the accused was innocent. The number 3 guy in Al Queda is guilty as sin.
The accused was an American Citizen who supported his rights that were protected by the Consitution.
The number 3 guy in Al Queda has sworn to destroy the US Consitution.
Etc.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 12:34pm
The number 3 guy in Al Queda has sworn to destroy the US Consitution. Etc. Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 12:34pm
so are the swine you are trying to defend.
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/23/2009 @ 12:42pm
That is why Sheriff Dick want's the memos released, because he was right.------Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 12:29pm
Then he'd have nothing to fear from a trial, would he?
Posted by Mask at 04/23/2009 @ 1:05pm
At present there are a few people , who claim be in the know, telling us that some of these harsh interrogation techniques, including simulated drowning, have been very successful in getting potential life saving intelligence. We won't know if that claim is true until that information is freely made available.
Posted by lrjones4 at 04/23/2009 @ 10:09am
what they are not telling you, and what cannot be known now, is would normal techniques have produced the same results.
Many good people with experience with real world, real time interrogation are telling me that they get results using the normal methods as outlined in the military field manual. JAG officers are against these harsh techniques, Gen Pace is against it. It appears that those that are for torture are mainly civilian leaders, and that is who the "right" has told us for decades should be hands off national security, leave it to the pros, the military, is what you have said.
When asked to explain the "need" for torturing detainees the answer given by Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush was ..."We were afraid". Think about that.
Posted by crabwalk at 04/23/2009 @ 1:05pm
frosty zoom,
You said above "....RAPTOR!....."
Given where you live, I would think you would be saying "....PISTONS!....."
I realize that the Toronto Raptors are the only Canadian NBA team now that the Vancouver Grizzlies moved to Memphis.
But that doesn't mean you have to root for them..
After all, when you look at hockey, in the NHL, a lot of people who live in the Niagara Region are Buffalo Sabres fans, they don't automatically root for Toronto Maple Leafs just because they are Canadian.
By the way, if you are in the Niagara Region, and near the town of Vineland, there is a place where you can get arts and crafts and also ice cream cones, $2.00 plus .35 GST/PST last time I had one. It was good, and for once worth skipping a visit to Tim Hortons.
Posted by sjchermak at 04/23/2009 @ 1:06pm
Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll,
You said "...If my job is to protect Americans and I reasonably believe that smashing a terrorist's nuts with a hammer will save the lives of Americans, then that's what I'm going to do....."
I think it would be great if somebody could do that to the president of Iran.
Posted by sjchermak at 04/23/2009 @ 1:09pm
If my job is to protect Muslims and I reasonably believe that smashing an American's nuts with a hammer will save the lives of Muslims, then that's what I'm going to do.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 11:05am
Hi Usama!
I did not know you posted here.
Boy, if you treat Americans like that, they may declare jihad on you and your family. Maybe you had best think about the long term effects of your plan.
Posted by crabwalk at 04/23/2009 @ 1:10pm
Of course the pro-teabag folks here only seem to be including those that want America harmed. What they don't know, or even ask, is "how many people were tortured that had nothing to give."
How much false information was given to make the pain stop, to get some sleep, to have the panties removed from the head. How much time and money was wasted, how many real leads were lost so that SJ, DARIN and LR could feel like Jack Bauer?
Posted by crabwalk at 04/23/2009 @ 1:16pm
I think it would be great if somebody could do that to the president of Iran. Posted by sjchermak at 04/23/2009 @ 1:09pm
and the band played on........
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/23/2009 @ 1:17pm
I think it would be great if somebody could do that to the president of Iran. Posted by sjchermak at 04/23/2009 @ 1:09pm
and the band played on........ Posted by frosty zoom at 04/23/2009 @ 1:17pm
And that band is comprised of one guy who is playing the accordion, with cymbals strapped to his knees and a monkey on his shoulder. All one has to do is mention 'Dick', the Cheney, and spittle flecked rhetoric flies like an endangered species.
Posted by ficheye at 04/23/2009 @ 1:23pm
still "satisfied", mr. mask:
"whenever you have banks that are too big to fail, you will get oligarchs"
Thomas Hoenig - President of the Kansas City Fed
πππππ
obviously just another "dreamer".
sheesh.
your butt's gonna get lots of splinters from sittin' on the ol' fence....
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/23/2009 @ 1:40pm
I think it would be great if somebody could do that to the president of Iran.-----Posted by sjchermak at 04/23/2009 @ 1:09pm
Really, why exactly?
Posted by Mask at 04/23/2009 @ 1:48pm
Okay so that's Darin, Larry, and Comanche firmly in the "Four Legs Good" camp.
Posted by snowball666 at 04/23/2009 @ 12:39pm
Snowball wasn't who Orwell intended as the hero, was he?
And at least we are consistently right. Four legs are good. But as to whether two legs are bad or two legs are better, well that all depends on the mood of the moral relativists.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 1:53pm
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/23/2009 @ 1:40pm
Between "terminal lung cancer" (more Bushism under McCain)....and a "hacking cough".....yep, I'm satisfied.
Posted by Mask at 04/23/2009 @ 1:54pm
Then he'd have nothing to fear from a trial, would he?
Posted by Mask at 04/23/2009 @ 1:05pm
Not with me in the jury pool.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 1:55pm
I think it would be great if somebody could do that to the president of Iran.-----Posted by sjchermak at 04/23/2009 @ 1:09pm
Really, why exactly?
Posted by Mask at 04/23/2009 @ 1:48pm
Because you can be reasonably sure it will save the lives of innocent Americans.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 1:57pm
Boy, if you treat Americans like that, they may declare jihad on you and your family. Maybe you had best think about the long term effects of your plan.
Posted by crabwalk at 04/23/2009 @ 1:10pm
Hey Crabman!
actually, mirror image is, "If I believe decapitating the Jewish swine Daniel Pear will save the lives of Muslims, I'd do it."
And the guy who actually did decapitate Daniel Pearl, is one of the guys who was waterboarded.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 2:01pm
Name one impact on Americans that the Energy Task force could possibly have had on them? Hint-nothing. Posted by antisocialist at 04/22/2009 @ 09:40am
Just one? How about the Enron manipulation of energy production/distribution in California that drove prices through the roof, driving small businesses into bankruptcy and disrupting the economy of the entire state?
I guess mentioning the invasion an oil-rich nation, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths, costing over a trillion dollars of tax money and lowering our nation's credibility in the eyes of much of the world would be unfair as I already mentioned one.
In reality, we have very little idea how much impact the Energy Task Force has had on not just the U.S., but the world because what they decided to implement is still SECRET!
Posted by Radscal at 04/23/2009 @ 2:11pm
Because you can be reasonably sure it will save the lives of innocent Americans. Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 1:57pm
you really want another 9/11?
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/23/2009 @ 2:15pm
This was actually a very illuminating discussion. I've come to realize that when people say that we shouldn't torture, that is synonymous with, "It is immoral to gamble with the lives and human rights of others."
I say "gamble" because there is uncertainty; uncertainty of the "accused" person's guilt and of whether they have useful information and uncertainty whether the obtained information is useful or misleading.
Fine, all of that is absolutely 100% true. But BFD. The person who believes that this creates a moral certainty against the use of torture doesn't understand risk.
So there are two things here. One is the difference between criminal court and civil court.
The other is Type I errors and Type II errors.
I will elaborate on each of these in separate posts.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 2:48pm
Criminal vs. Civil Court.
There are different standards of "proof" in these two courts. There are different standards for the admission of evidence in these two courts. And the reason is that there is a very real difference in power in these courts.
In criminal court it is The People or The State, v. powerless individual. In civil court it is Individual A v. Individual B. There is not a power imbalance. So in criminal court the standard of proof is, "beyond a reasonable doubt." In civil court the standard of proof is, "a preponderance of evidence." That roughly translates into 95% sure versus 51% sure.
Given the substantial power imbalance in criminal court, without something to level the playing field, you would create more Type I errors than Type II errors. By increasing the relative burden on The State, you bring split between Type I error and Type II error closer to parity and even create more Type II errors.
Tis better 100 guilty men go free than one innocent man jailed. The statement (which isn't literally true) says it is better to have 100 Type II errors than 1 Type I error.
Okay, time to switch subjects.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 2:48pm
Type I Error (α) v. Type II Error (β)
Here's a definition:
Type I (α): reject the null-hypothesis when the null-hypothesis is true, and Type II (β): fail to reject the null-hypothesis when the null-hypothesis is false
When you have to make a judgment or decision where the result is binary (either correct or incorrect) 1 of 4 things with happen (two are good and two are bad). Let's stick with the criminal court. (The null-hypothesis is "innocent" (until proven guilty.))
1) You can acquit an innocent man (good) (accept null-hypothesis when true) 2) You can convict a guilty man (good) (reject null-hypothesis when false) 3) You can convict an innocent man (bad Type I Error) 4) You can acquit a guilty man (bad Type II Error)
So we need to balance the "cost" of Type I errors against the "cost" of Type II errors. Unfortunately, the "cost" is either subjective (one's freedom) or unknowable at the time (the life of the person subsequently murdered by the acquitted murderer who strikes again.)
What does this mean for torture? Suppose the null-hypothesis is don't torture:
1) You can not torture an innocent man (good) but also you can not torture a guilty man who would harm you with false information (also good)
2) You can torture a guilty man who, because of the torture gives you information that prevents the deaths of innocents that you would not have otherwise obtained. (Good)
3) You can torture and innocent man (bad Type I Error reject the null when true) 3) You can torture a guilty man who resists the torture and doesn't give any useful information (also bad Type I Error. It wasn't necessarily "wrong" just not useful.)
4) You can not torture a guilt man who would have given life saving information. (bad Type II Error)
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 2:48pm
What is the relative "cost" of Type I Errors v. Type II errors?
What is the relative "supply" of null-hypothesis candidates v. the pool of people for whom torture would yield life-saving information? The answer is unknowable, but that doesn't make your subjective opinion any more valuable than mine.
Many here claim, based on nothing more than uninformed opinion, that "torture doesn't work"
How do you know? Torture has been around for millenia. How many other things have been around for millenia that don't accomplish the objectives they are designed to acheive?
Seriously, give me an example.
So, you would ban torture based on your subjective, uniformed opinions regarding human nature of soldiers.
Well, just like the Cider House Rules, your rules will be ignored.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 2:48pm
How do you know? Torture has been around for millenia. How many other things have been around for millenia that don't accomplish the objectives they are designed to acheive?
Seriously, give me an example.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 2:48pm
Prayer.
Posted by Extraneous at 04/23/2009 @ 2:58pm
Prayer.
Posted by Extraneous at 04/23/2009 @ 2:58pm
nope. prayer is supposed to make the prayer feel beeter. that happens for most. the people who pray to win the lottery are doing it wrong
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 3:10pm
nope. prayer is supposed to make the prayer feel beeter. that happens for most. the people who pray to win the lottery are doing it wrong
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 3:10pm
I think the same could be said for torture. You torture to make your enemy suffer and to put fear into the minds of those who oppose you. People who torture just for answers are doing it wrong.
Posted by Extraneous at 04/23/2009 @ 3:17pm
Just to clear, there is a difference between "works" and "works perfectly, every time, on every single person."
If torture "works sometimes" that disproves the claim that toture "doesn't work" Yes it does, sometimes.
For instance, The Gooks (as Sen McCain refered to his captors) tortured John and his compatriots. Some of them signed false confessions.
If you think that because the torture elicited false confessions "it didn't work", well, you're an idiot. The object of the torture was confessions, real or otherwise didn't matter because they were useful for propaganda purposes.
It worked. Period. End of discussion.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 3:18pm
"2) You can torture a guilty man who, because of the torture gives you information that prevents the deaths of innocents that you would not have otherwise obtained. (Good)"
In theory and Fox TV, ...
If this makes 0.95 recruits instead of 1.2?
Now replace all of the 1.2 questions above with 12? Does it change any of your answers? Now 120...
Deterrent or motivation?
Posted by snowball666 at 04/23/2009 @ 3:18pm
Good point. The problem isn't torture, the problem is the Liberals in the press and their very public self-flagellation of the US.
I don't seem to have much sway with The Press. Maybe you can convince them the shut the hell up.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 3:24pm
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 3:18pm
Darin, if, hypothetically, six years ago, I could have tortured three men "for the truth" and it would have saved the lives of over 4100 American soldiers....you'd approve of that, right?
heheh
Posted by Mask at 04/23/2009 @ 3:33pm
Posted by snowball666 at 04/23/2009 @ 3:18pm
Snowball, we have identifed the root of our difference.
Snowball: Terrorists are going to continue to attac the US whether we torture or not. I DO NOT believe torture will materially reduce the attacks AND may make them worse. And since the road taken is unknowable, meaning that even though terrorist attacks will continue, we can neven know with certainty that torture would have prevented them. That's all I need to know in order to feel good about my decision.
Darin: Terrorists are going to continue to attac the US whether we torture or not. I DO believe torture will materially reduce the attacks BUT CONCEED THEY may make them worse. And since the road taken is unknowable, meaning that even though terrorist WILL CONTINUE TO RECRUIT, we can neven know with certainty that torture CREATED MORE RECRUITS. That's all I need to know in order to feel good about my decision.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 3:34pm
Posted by snowball666 at 04/23/2009 @ 3:18pm
Snowball, we have identifed the root of our difference.
Darin: Don't just sit there, do something.
Snowball: Don't just do something, sit there!
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 3:35pm
Hey, do you guys remember guest blogger Jessica Velenti? She's got a new book out.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30353377/
In "The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession With Virginity Is Hurting Young Women," author Jessica Valenti -- founder and executive editor of Feministing.com -- argues that our culture is too harsh on women who embrace sexuality. Her book looks at the fallacies of virginity, chastity and purity through the lens of our sexually charged media culture.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 3:57pm
I'm certainly no expert, but I'm certain virginity is real.
And it has nothing to do with whether the girl is a good person or not. It has to do with whether or not you (the prospective husband) are going to be saddled with raising some other dude's offspring.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 4:02pm
More than 1,400 purity balls, where young girls pledge their virginity to their fathers at a promlike event, were held in 2006 (the balls are federally funded). Facebook is peppered with purity groups that exist to support girls trying to "save it." Schools hold abstinence rallies and assemblies featuring hip-hop dancers and comedians alongside religious leaders. Virginity and chastity are reemerging as a trend in pop culture, in our schools, in the media, and even in legislation. So while young women are subject to overt sexual messages every day, they're simultaneously being taught -- by the people who are supposed to care for their personal and moral development, no less -- that their only real worth is their virginity and ability to remain "pure."
********************************************************
No, their "worth" isn't tied to virginity; their happiness is tied to life-long, monogomous pair-bonding.
Our brains are hard-wired for life-long pair bonding, just like penguins. Rubbers and the pill haven't changed human nature. Our pursuit of immortality through procreation is the most important thing 95% of us will do with our lives and when we get older and search for the meaning in our life, our children more often then not top the list.
There are exceptions. Some can avoid jealously and have open marriages, but not many. Some never have children and do not regret the decsion, but they are a minority.
The Chasity Ball is an event that doesn't tie worth to virginity, it ties worth in waiting for "The One", not The First.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 4:10pm
Cheney - 2nd worst VP in the history of the country (Spiro was worse.)
nah. he was only a small time crook. Cheney is a war criminal.
Posted by emile duBois at 04/23/2009 @ 4:25pm
Cheney - 2nd worst VP in the history of the country (Spiro was worse.)
nah. he was only a small time crook. Cheney is a war criminal.I'm moving to Ecuador.. Regards, O'Guillory Posted by OGuillory at 04/22/2009 @ 12:25pm | ignore this person | warn this person
good. don't let the door hit you on the way out. you can regale the Ecuadorians with your crazy conspiracy tales.
Posted by emile duBois at 04/23/2009 @ 4:30pm
Other US agencies systematically gathering intelligence abroad? Like whom? Posted by Thrawn at 04/22/2009 @ 6:21pm | ignore this person | warn this person
the army for one.
Posted by emile duBois at 04/23/2009 @ 4:35pm
Other US agencies systematically gathering intelligence abroad? Like whom? Posted by Thrawn at 04/22/2009 @ 6:21pm | ignore this person | warn this person
the army for one. Obama will pardon the offenses. Posted by Wolfgang1 at 04/23/2009 @ 07:18am | ignore this person | warn this person
he can pardon the offender, NOT the offenses.
Posted by emile duBois at 04/23/2009 @ 4:38pm
I believe the only course of action in the face of 'imminent threat defeatable by torture' (an entirely TOO convenient and contrived case, but acceptable as axiom) is to DO THE TORTURING,
real creepy, you are advocating torture.
let's say your brother is a captive american soldier. torture ok wid chu?
Posted by emile duBois at 04/23/2009 @ 4:58pm
Frosty Zoom,
You made a response to Darin, as follows:
===================
Because you can be reasonably sure it will save the lives of innocent Americans. Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/23/2009 @ 1:57pm
you really want another 9/11?
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/23/2009 @ 2:15pm
===================
Frosty, it would be to prevent another 9/11.
Look at it this way.... you have a place in the Niagara Region where you can get good Ice Cream, in the town of Vineland. And if you want to go to a computer store, you can go to Future Shop.
One of the benefits of going to Future Shop (any one, anywhere), is that when you walk out of the store, there is something in each direction.
Here in the U.S., if you go to J&R Computer World to look for computers, when you walk out of the store, and then walk across the street, and then through St. Paul's Chapel, there is nothing there. Not a thing. Two 110 story buildings used to occupy that spot.
The President of Iran, although his first objective will be to wipe out Israel, would then like to see what happened across the street from St. Paul's Chapel on 9/11 to happen to us again someday.
Now, you have certain views, I know, but if you ask some other people, probably people like Stephen Harper or perhaps Brian Mulroney, I am sure they would say that we should do what we can to make sure that any customers at any Future Shop location do not have to walk out of the store and see nothing across the street.
We need to prevent another 9/11. George W. Bush and Tony Blair's approach did that. Obama's won't.
I don't agree with your opinion on this one.
Posted by sjchermak at 04/23/2009 @ 4:58pm
argumentum ad ignorantiam
look it up..it fits you (and many others here)
Posted by antisocialist at 04/23/2009 @ 10:20am
Yeah ok LVL. Instead of debating you are just insulting. Maybe you should get you head out your ass and ask yourself a logical question before you go around calling other people ignorant you arrogant condescending idiot. I'm sorry if my mind works logically and I don't subscribe to some fanatical ideological stupidity, instead I prefer to think and act for myself. Maybe I should try to buy into some BS like you and remain willful ignorant of history, human nature and anything else that is useful to relating to other people or my government.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/23/2009 @ 5:01pm
Clarification/typo
The place where there is nothing is out the other side of St. Paul's Chapel, and across the street.
Posted by sjchermak at 04/23/2009 @ 5:01pm
sword of Damocles.
auto da fe
Posted by emile duBois at 04/23/2009 @ 5:02pm
argumentum ad ignorantiam
look it up..it fits you (and many others here)
Posted by antisocialist at 04/23/2009 @ 10:20am
Maybe you should try studying HISTORY instead of just the right wing version of history.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/23/2009 @ 5:04pm
I listen to Thom Hartmann on Air America; Thom made some fine points today about Cheney's bogus request to have CIA documents declassified & released which purportedly would show the success of their "enhanced interrogation" program - the lipstick-on-a-pig euphemism for torture.
Given that Cheney is no longer in office & no therefore has no authority to either classify or de-classify files, the MERE MENTION of the existence of classified documents would be a violation of the law. Add to this that a discussion of the specific CLASSIFIED CONTENT - say, on the utility of waterboarding - is a further violation of the law. Sort of like outing a covert CIA agent, but now, Cheney doesn't even have the legal cover that the Vice Presidency provided.
However, Cheney is not jeopardizing himself legally because THERE ARE NO SUCH DOCUMENTS. Outside of a courtroom, lying about fake documents is not illegal. Telling this lie is the only way he can pretend to make a case for the torture program.
If the Bush administration had found that waterboarding or any other torture technique HAD been effective, they would have released that information long ago! We can safely assume that the 92 tapes made of their "harsh interrogations" were destroyed precisely because they'd have revealed the opposite - that detainees were willing to make up any story to stop the torture, and that war crimes were de facto administration policy.
We can also safely assume that the purpose of torture was to force detainees to lie on purpose, to falsely confess knowledge of WMDs, & to fabricate a connection between Al Qaida and Iraq. Torture and cherry-picking got Bush, Cheney, & Rumsfeld et. al. the war they so desperately wanted to wage.
So thank you, John Nichols, & yes indeed, let's see it all!
Posted by whybaby at 04/23/2009 @ 5:11pm
argumentum ad ignorantiam
look it up..it fits you (and many others here)
Posted by antisocialist at 04/23/2009 @ 10:20am
I notice the times you turn to insult are the times you have nothing useful to contribute and no actual retort. Instead of retorting you choose to insult others because you KNOW you are wrong but you don't want to admit it, I guess it goes along with negotiation where being wrong is a sign of weakness. Maybe you should learn to just admit your wrong instead of being an insufferable idiot about it.
Posted by Cccomfo1 at 04/23/2009 @ 5:14pm
Antisocialist is like a good lawyer; when the other side has the facts on their side, argue the law; when the other side has the law on their side, argue the facts; if you have neither a factual nor a legal argument, then just cite some higher authority or imagined divine principle.
Posted by theo51 at 04/23/2009 @ 6:04pm
Posted by Darin the Troll: "as if self-interest is inherently sinful."
If everyone behaved as if self-interest WERE inherently sinful, then we'd live in a much better world. In fact, there was this guy...think his name was Jesus or something like that, who basically preached that self-interest was inherently sinful. I could be wrong, but...something about "doing unto others...." wish I could remember the whole bit...it was good.
It truly amazes me how the people on this site who profess the love of American exceptionalism and morality in the world, do so in the defense of torture (and greed and many other sins). I was always taught that we should be BETTER than our enemies. Our enemies torture, ergo, we shouldn't. Period, end of story. That's why we signed all those treaties. In this case, the ends (information) do not justify the means (torture). But since we all know, even Dick himself, that a person is not waterboarded over 150 times in a month (last I heard) to get information, it must have been used for punishment...which REALLY goes against American ideals.
Don't get me wrong, I want to see Osama, KSM, etc. dead for what they did on 9/11. DEAD. But if America is to stay true to her founding principles and be that shining light for the rest of the world, we MUST stay true to those principles, even when it hurts us. Otherwise, those words in the Constitution that all those men and women are dying for now and in the past, aren't worth the parchment they were written on. We might as well admit we're a corporatist state, rape the rest of the world for treasure and be done with it.
I believe in those words, because I think they represent the best hope of humanity to survive. The planet has a brain and we are it. Maybe we should start using it.
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 04/23/2009 @ 7:21pm
Posted by sjchermak at 04/23/2009 @ 4:58pm
9/11 happened because what goes around, comes around.
simple as that.
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/23/2009 @ 11:00pm
Posted by sjchermak at 04/23/2009 @ 4:58pm
not blaming you, though.
you're just a piece of dust to these people.
(well, your tax dollars used to matter.....)
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/23/2009 @ 11:01pm
just like I said all along,dandelyon farming &vermin herding,thats french for i bet ya wanna rewrite any and everything ya never pretended to not say or print out the one of the many cornered sides of someones pale horses' _ ?O3 letters 2 s'sO, I should know,it's called editorial control,re-writing history after the math is all done,both sides back against a middle end game , aborted prematurely, creepy enough, yet ,I got more,maybe the tickle torture does work at least 51/50-% percent as well as a widespred syk-op aka mind control,the thicker and thicker the densityies evolve down and down the sub atomic vibrations of the tin-man to an imaganary place rams of troni call & aka aplace far far ,right over their in the neighboring desert regions as visable to the naked eye as the unseen sides of the MooN.Isn't it ironic,we/us/i-u,writting and "blogging,Dick righting and editing in virtual real time ,I guess that just leaves the filter and a main line outlet,cha ch/ing,gee buy the bOOk timed just right to avoid any nasty entanglements to any particular beleif faith or justice system,just suryveiling the best phyishing spots so i can make it up as we all go merrily r0w row the freedom thats sited on others murderous demise,don't leave much of a case for whOOm's after_?hell,blowback are these legit principals i need more evidentry proof B-4 i can commit my in-vesatures and double talks to the cause on behalf the lowest bidders sandbagging in the back,in the back of the darkside that is
Posted by doalive at 04/23/2009 @ 11:23pm
A Justice Department memo released by the Obama administration last week indicating that the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" including waterboarding apparently helped the U.S. government thwart a terrorist attack in Los Angeles, confirms that waterboarding has helped undermine al Qaeda,
Guess maybe the leftist were right we SHOULD have forgone waterboarding and let the carnage ensue on the left coast and maybe lighten up their skewed opinions! Downtown L.A. could have its own crater and memorials.
Posted by comancheamerican at 04/24/2009 @ 12:30am
What is the relative "supply" of null-hypothesis candidates v. the pool of people for whom torture would yield life-saving information? The answer is unknowable, but that doesn't make your subjective opinion any more valuable than mine.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll
They tortured people to get info linking Saddam to Al Qaida. The only thing this information could save is Bush et als' reputations... This makes the "24" televison program scenario, where torture yeilds life saving info, meaningless...In these cases, Jack Bauer didn't even come to town.
Posted by koroviev at 04/24/2009 @ 12:46am
Torture has been around for millenia.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll
No, torture did not exist as a function performed by the Government of the United States of America before 2001.
Posted by koroviev at 04/24/2009 @ 12:53am
Torture has been around for millenia.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll
No, torture did not exist as a function performed by the Government of the United States of America before 2001.
Posted by koroviev at 04/24/2009 @ 12:53am
Yeah right. George Bush invented torture.
Nobody was tortured during the civil war? And you are certain of this. Nobody was totrued during the war of 1812?
Ever hear of scalping?
Ever hear of cruxifiction?
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/24/2009 @ 08:39am
...think his name was Jesus or something like that, who basically preached that self-interest was inherently sinful. I could be wrong, but...something about "doing unto others...." wish I could remember the whole bit...it was good.
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 04/23/2009 @ 7:21pm
You generalize far too much. Some actions of self-interest are sinful: masturbation, adultery, gluttony, sloth.
Some action of self-interest are not sinful: killing someone in self defense. Honoring your father and mother. etc.
Try again.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/24/2009 @ 08:48am
It truly amazes me how the people on this site who profess the love of American exceptionalism and morality in the world, do so in the defense of torture (and greed and many other sins).
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 04/23/2009 @ 7:21pm
I know I got a little wordy here yesterday, but what you fail to understand is that inaction can be every bit as immoral as postive actions can be.
Sitting idly by allowing the slaughter of innocents is immoral. The Catholic church recently discussed it's imoral inactions in remaining silent during the Holocaust. Inaction can be every bit as imoral as other actions.
Not toturing terrorists who very likely have information about future attacks on innocent carries a cost. It is known as an "opportunity cost". The moral weight of that opportunity cost can far outweight the moral sin of torturing an individual who has pledged his life in the destruction of innocents.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/24/2009 @ 08:55am
Don't get me wrong, I want to see Osama, KSM, etc. dead for what they did on 9/11. DEAD. But if America is to stay true to her founding principles and be that shining light for the rest of the world, we MUST stay true to those principles,
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 04/23/2009 @ 7:21pm
The people who waterboarded the terrorists didn't do it for punishment. They didn't do it for retributions. They did it to obtain information to protect innocent people.
When you start believing the bullshit about Cheney getting his jollies...
Get serious.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/24/2009 @ 08:58am
Not toturing terrorists who very likely have information about future attacks on innocent carries a cost. It is known as an "opportunity cost". The moral weight of that opportunity cost can far outweight the moral sin of torturing an individual who has pledged his life in the destruction of innocents.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/24/2009 @ 08:55am | ignore this person | warn this person
.
Pure, absolute, unadulterated BS. Fat Darin, you not only are incapable of making a coherent argument in defense of torture - you are pissing away your morality and humanity in the absurd attempt.
Take of the partisan glasses and, for once in your life, think, act, and speak from your humanity.
(OK, probably too much to ask from a self-professed 'troll')
Posted by Lillian at 04/24/2009 @ 09:05am
hundreds of dead in Iraq.
surge, where be thy balm?
Posted by emile duBois at 04/24/2009 @ 09:11am
The things people have said in defense of torture (really, in defense of those who ordered and authorized torture) sicken me - but don't surprise me. Many of the usual suspects (Larry, Darin, etc.) have demonstrated their moral 'realtivity' on numerous occasions.
Meanwhile, back in reality, from someone who has 'been there, done that' and knows the absolute facts about whether such techniques gathered useful information or not ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/opinion/23soufan.html
My Tortured Decision
By ALI SOUFAN
Published: April 22, 2009
Ali Soufan was an F.B.I. supervisory special agent from 1997 to 2005.
.
"There was no actionable intelligence gained from using enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah that wasn't, or couldn't have been, gained from regular tactics. In addition, I saw that using these alternative methods on other terrorists backfired on more than a few occasions -- all of which are still classified."
.
"Defenders of these techniques have claimed that they got Abu Zubaydah to give up information leading to the capture of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a top aide to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and Mr. Padilla. This is false. The information that led to Mr. Shibh's capture came primarily from a different terrorist operative who was interviewed using traditional methods. As for Mr. Padilla, the dates just don't add up: the harsh techniques were approved in the memo of August 2002, Mr. Padilla had been arrested that May."
.
"Almost all the agency officials I worked with on these issues were good people who felt as I did about the use of enhanced techniques: it is un-American, ineffective and harmful to our national security. "
Posted by Lillian at 04/24/2009 @ 09:16am
Pure, absolute, unadulterated BS. Fat Darin, you not only are incapable of making a coherent argument in defense of torture - you are pissing away your morality and humanity in the absurd attempt.
Posted by Lillian at 04/24/2009 @ 09:05am
Just because you don't understand the concept of opportunity cost does not make it BS.
Just because we can't know with certainty what would have happend had we taken an alternate course doesn't mean the opportunity cost of chosing a this path is zero.
I'm an actuary. I've made a six-figure salary for the last decade by determining a price for an unknowable cost. I do this for a living. You don't.
It is unequivocal that there is an opportunity cost for not torturing terrorists. It may be your opinion that the cost is small or immaterial. That's fine, you are entitled to your uniformed opinion. You are not entitled to proclaim that the universe is dramatically different from reality.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/24/2009 @ 10:58am
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/24/2009 @ 10:58am
What is the cost of foreign intelligence agencies not revealing locations of suspected terrorists for fear of being connected to torture?
Posted by !immutable at 04/24/2009 @ 12:01pm
What is the cost of foreign intelligence agencies not revealing locations of suspected terrorists for fear of being connected to torture?
Posted by !immutable at 04/24/2009 @ 12:01pm
It is non-zero. Which means you concede the argument.
Torture is not a heinous crime condemned by God which is beyond debate: torture is a tool that has been used for millenia that has potential costs and benefits.
Your side does not get to argue about prohibiting torture while pretending it has no cost. Like the abortion debate, you are free to choose to believe the opportunity cost of abortion/torture is small, but you do not get to start the argument with the premise that it is non-existent.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/24/2009 @ 12:21pm
Deuteronomy 23:1
No one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord.
Now I know why CHERMAK wants to get out the hammer! Deny those muslims salvation. Thus sayeth the Lord.
Posted by ficheye at 04/24/2009 @ 12:31pm
Darin's whole argument rests on the voracity of Cheneys statement that torturing gathered useful intel. That voracity has been questioned by :
The head of the FBI
military interrogators
CIA interrogators
FBI interrogators.
Basically Darins argument rests on his ideological attachment to Bush/Cheney. He surrounds his arguments for treating our detainees they way AQ or Saddam would treat them with dances with Kant, zero sum games, wild scenarios that have not been proven to exist.
What it boils down to is he is willing to cause pain to others in the belief that they :
A: are guilty
b: will not produce false information
c: may harm Darin
It is a policy based on fear, propaganda and the race to the bottom.
Posted by crabwalk at 04/24/2009 @ 1:00pm
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/24/2009 @ 12:21pm
So Darin, lets objectively list the verifiable pros and cons of torture.
Posted by !immutable at 04/24/2009 @ 1:01pm
"confirms that waterboarding has helped undermine al Qaeda"
this point is completely irrelevant. waterboarding is illegal, under domestic and international law. those who authorize or commit waterboarding are, in fact, criminally liable for their actions.
there is no doubt about this.
and the excuse you are giving is no different than the excuses given by: al qaeda.
Posted by darladoon at 04/24/2009 @ 1:03pm
folks, there is no defense for waterboarding. the media is attempting to create confusion or doubt where there is none. there is no "debate" about it.
A = A
Posted by darladoon at 04/24/2009 @ 1:05pm
in october of 2007, bush admitted to the white house press corps that he authorized the torture program.
he also said, "we do not torture."
so not only did he authorize torture, he lied about it.
bush is a criminal, as is cheney. and they are both going to prison.
Posted by darladoon at 04/24/2009 @ 1:08pm
Remember, the same people that told Darin that causing pain to people (some as young as 14) would keep him safe, also told him:
1: Saddam had 20,000 liters of Anthrax
2: Saddam had reconstituted his nuclear program
3: Saddam had links to AQ
4: The head of Iraq intelligence met with AQ
5: EVERY person held at GITMO was one of "the most denagerous", even the 2/3 that were later released
6: all of "the most dangerous" held at GITMO had ben captured "on the batlefield".
7: the war in Iraq was central to the GWOT
8: the war in Iraw would last weeks, maybe months, certainly not years
9: warrants were pulled for wiretaps on US citizens.
10: only terrorists were wiretapped.
Every one of those has turned out to be false.
But Darin, SJ and others continue to listen to the people that were wrong, lied to them and have used our system to hide their own violations of their oaths.
Why?
Fear
and attachment ot ideology.
They don't want open minds. They will create as long a rhetorical BS list as need be to enforce their preconceived notions. They will deny access to documents that may prove the innocence of those they fear, but will call for the release of documents that might show some intel was gained, while ignoring the destroyed tapes, the secret DVD's of Abu Graib, the secret can't tell you documents that will show many tortured gave up nothing .
Fear
hatred.
Family Values
Posted by crabwalk at 04/24/2009 @ 1:11pm
Again, the Obamanation admin. and the Demoncrats are at best LIARS and HYPOCRITS and any prosecution of torture enablers will include ALL of them!
The Washington Post in December of 2007 reported on a first-hand virtual tour of CIA overseas detentions sites given to Pelosi, then the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, and other members of Congress, that included graphic instruction on waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques.
From the Post story:
In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk.
Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said.
Maybe its time to start waterboarding congress?
Posted by comancheamerican at 04/24/2009 @ 1:23pm
Posted by comancheamerican at 04/24/2009 @ 1:23pm
I have said this before, any investigations should have no boundaries. If Pelosi knew of it and was able to speak out about it and didn't then she should be subject to whatever laws apply.
Posted by !immutable at 04/24/2009 @ 1:33pm
Darin - I don't need to "try again." You advocate for conditional morality. That's not what morality is. Morality is a set of standards (or rules...or laws in a democracy) by which one chooses to live a life.
Admittedly, "morals" are different things for different people, and we all set our personal levels at different places.
But we're not talking about an individual's morals; we're talking about the morals of a nation. Our nation has signed legal treaties stating that we, as a nation, believe waterboarding is torture. We, as a nation, have legally prosecuted people who commit waterboarding with war crimes. That is not conditional morality. That is a morality that our leaders of the past, in their wisdom, have set...a standard that we, as a nation, should continually aspire to. We, as a nation, have stated time and time again that we will not torture. The American people are against torture every single time you ask them the question. President Bush said to the world, "We do not torture." (He was lying when he said it, but that's another point.)
Then comes Dick. Dick said (paraphrasing), "Yeah we tortured, but it worked," which of course, shows absolutely no loyalty to his own President and hangs Mr. Bush out to dry like yesterday's laundry. (Then again, I have never considered Mr. Cheney to be a man of high morals. He's still pissed about Scooter.)
Morality is not conditional. If it was immoral to do something yesterday, then regardless of the circumstances, it is still immoral today. Otherwise, what is the point of having all these laws and treaties anyway? Everyone should just be able to do whatever the hell they want and everybody else be damned, because everyone's morals are constantly changing? Is that the world YOU want to live in?
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 04/24/2009 @ 1:43pm
Verily, those that are called the 'Obamanation administration that creates desolation' will be plagued for fourscore years by the locusts that those on the right will deliver unto them, for it is declared that they can do no right even though the forefathers visited hell on earth upon them.
Yea, and they will be seen evermore as an abomination in the eyes of the Lord Darth Cheney as he inhabits the halls of the damned, the liars, and the warmongers. His utterances will echo evermore from the talk show studios, and sound loudly into the aether.
Wine has been turned to vinegar and the useless struggle, yea the endless rhetoric will continue, the arguments of the ages, ever seeking a futile resolution. The Lord waves his holy doohickey over the rabble and their brains become like mush, like the Palin, like cornbread dissolved in water, and they will wander for fourscore and seven years while the money changers diminish and go into the western housing developments.
And they maketh not a thing, this nation, but yearn forever to again be the shufflers of paper and to collect the interest waged on the monies of fast food processors, or to make the insidious and horrific weaponry and frighten the world into submission, shouting their vain and self serving doctrines into the faces of the detractors.
And it was seen that they would water board and use the flaming splinters to support their evil agendas, for they feared the truth so greatly in their hearts.
Indeed, they shouted that this could not be, this peace and prosperity, for they so much yearned for the final battles that would rescue them from the thought process. And the one with the cloven hooves looked own upon his dark minions and was pleased, even while the cries of grief issued forth from the innocents.
Posted by ficheye at 04/24/2009 @ 1:54pm
"holy doohickey"
LOVE IT!
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 04/24/2009 @ 1:57pm
This will go nowhere because too many top democrats were also aware of and condoned the actions taken.
"Democrats Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and Sens. Bob Graham (D-Fla.) and John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), all held oversight roles during this period. The Post reports that the lawmakers raised "no objections" to the interrogation methods demonstrated by the CIA and that in fact, "at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder."" Pelosi knew too...
Nothing will come of this. It is simply designed to appease the far left, distract the far right and keep all of us from focusing on the real deception, the wholesale theft of our wealth, liberty and future.
Posted by freiheit1 at 04/24/2009 @ 1:57pm
I'm an actuary.
ah, that's why you're always wrong.
I've made a six-figure salary for the last decade
in dollars? hahahahaha!
by determining a price for an unknowable cost.
you mean like quants? hahahahaha!
I do this for a living.
9 times out of 10.....
You don't.
thank god.
It is unequivocal that there is an opportunity cost for not torturing terrorists.
and also for torturing them. AND WHAT IF YOU'VE GOT THE WRONG GUY?!?!??!?
KARMA KNOWS A HELL OF A LOT MORE THAN AN "ACTUARY".
It may be your opinion that the cost is small or immaterial.
no, they're just a REAL human.
That's fine, you are entitled to your uniformed opinion.
you mean like when a certain actuary told me it was impossible for mccain to lose north carolina?
You are not entitled to proclaim that the universe is dramatically different from reality.
reality? anthropocentric fool.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Arrogant_Troll at 04/24/2009 @ 10:58am
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/24/2009 @ 2:22pm
Family Values
Posted by crabwalk at 04/24/2009 @ 1:11pm
just like newt!
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/24/2009 @ 2:23pm
you mean like when a certain actuary told me it was impossible for mccain to lose north carolina?
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/24/2009 @ 2:22pm
Are you sure that's what I said?
I remember a conversation where I said my vote doesn't matter. Then Mask said that North Carolina was in play. I didn't dispute that, but I said if NC was so close that my vote could make the difference in NC, McCain had already lost the nation.
There are a dozen or so swing states. If you lined them up right to left NC would be on the right then FL then OH then NM then MO then IN then WI them IA them MN then...
This isn't a perfect order, but generailly from right to left the margin of victory would tend more and more Democrat as you moved left. If NC was 50/50 McCain was toast. Given that McCain barely lost NC, I was right.
Now, I might have said what you claim. I have been known to fly off the handle now and again; boast a little here and there. But the if the conversation above is the one you are thinking of, then I don't think I said what you heard.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/24/2009 @ 2:40pm
nope.
i told you he was gonna lose n.c. and you said "impossible".
i'll find the quote later.
off to work (while money still means something -- better plant some turnips, darin....)
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/24/2009 @ 2:48pm
and also for torturing them. AND WHAT IF YOU'VE GOT THE WRONG GUY?!?!??!?
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/24/2009 @ 2:22pm
And what if you have Zacharias Mousoui? Had we tortured him we would have learned of the 9/11 and would have saved 3000 innocent lives.
He might not be the best example because we didn't need to torture him. We just needed to read his fucking computer. But Janet Reno was besider herself with self-hatred over the risk that America would violate an individual's human rights and read his computer so she refused to allow the US to read his computer, which would have saved the lives of 3000 innocent Americans.
How's that for an opportunity cost?
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/24/2009 @ 2:49pm
i'll find the quote later.
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/24/2009 @ 2:48pm
Don't bother, you're probably right.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/24/2009 @ 2:51pm
"Again, the Obamanation admin. and the Demoncrats are at best LIARS and HYPOCRITS and any prosecution of torture enablers will include ALL of them"
this is proof that the media is brainwashing people. this is NOT a political issue! this is a legal issue. if the investigations happen to conclude that democrats were involved, then those democrats should be prosecuted, too.
why does anyone believe that this is only a concern of the "hard left"? do people on the right really believe in laws, or are they more interested in protecting the ruling elites who authorized torture?
Posted by darladoon at 04/24/2009 @ 3:58pm
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/24/2009 @ 2:49pm
Whoops, lookey there!
Darin found a way to blame it on a Clinton official.
amazing. If one cannot find a link to Hitler, go with the Clinton era.
MASK, what would that be called?
I think all traffic stops should lead to harsh interrogation techniques. After all, the opportunity cost of NOT torturing someone that may have knowledge of crimes is too high a cost to bear. As we know, most people are aware of friends that use dope, cheat on taxes, cheat on spouses, drive buzzed, break speed limits, pour toxics down drains, use drugs prescribed for others, declare falsehoods on corporate reports, fill out false time cards.
Just think of the benefit to society!
Just think, if Cheney and Kenny Lay had been waterboarded, the whole ENRON debacle could have been avoided.
ooohh, I love the slip and slide home water boarding kit slippery slope the cons trot out to justify their AQ-like tactics.
Posted by crabwalk at 04/24/2009 @ 4:49pm
ficheye,
You say "....Deuteronomy 23:1
No one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord....."
I have to admit I did not know about that....but thanks to you I do now......
and that makes my suggestion about what should happen to the president of Iran even better yet!!!
Thanks for making my day!
Posted by sjchermak at 04/24/2009 @ 6:15pm
frosty zoom,
You said (about me):
".......not blaming you, though......."
We obviously totally disagree about the subject at hand but I have to admit that I appreciate that you hold no personal angst about me because of my opinions, nor do I about about yours.
So we can agree to disagree.
Therefore, even though the ice cream place I talked about is not close to Windsor, if some time you are in the Niagara region, check it out.
I can not vouch that it is still there, since I was there in 2004.
But if you are on the QEW going from Hamilton to St. Catherines, then get off at the Vineland exit and go INTO town. It was on the right as you head into town, it probably is still there.
Posted by sjchermak at 04/24/2009 @ 6:29pm
And what if you have Zacharias Mousoui? Had we tortured him we would have learned of the 9/11 and would have saved 3000 innocent lives.
.
How's that for an opportunity cost?
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/24/2009 @ 2:49pm | ignore this person | warn this person
.
Like a great deal of what you post here Darin, your purely fictional scenario above is so irrational and devoid of logical thought, that it is pathetically childlike to the point that I am embarrased for you.
It requires that you suspend all rational understanding - and the expert knowledge of everyone who is actually experienced in espionage, intelligence, and interrogation - and reach the absolutely stupid conclusion that 1) situations exist where you have certain foreknowledge that something 'bad' is absolutely going to happen, 2) that you know for certain that you have a suspect who knows the details that you require to prevent it, and 3) that torture is an effective way to get absolutely reliable information from your suspect that would allow you to prevent the 'bad' thing from happening. The first 2 situations have never existed outside of the plot lines for crappy novels or lame television shows, and the third notion has been proven beyond debate by VAST experience to be patently FALSE!
Like I said - it's pure, unadulterated BS.
Posted by Lillian at 04/24/2009 @ 7:06pm
Thanks for making my day! Posted by sjchermak at 04/24/2009 @ 6:15pm
It is the very least I can do for you, CHERMAK.
Posted by ficheye at 04/24/2009 @ 7:20pm
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/24/2009 @ 10:58am | ignore this person | warn this person
- - Just because you don't understand the concept of opportunity cost does not make it BS.
.
Just because I called you on your BS Darin doesn't mean I don't understand the concept of opportunity cost. Seriously, I thought you said 'logic' was one of your strong suits.
.
- - Just because we can't know with certainty what would have happend had we taken an alternate course doesn't mean the opportunity cost of chosing a this path is zero.
.
No, it doesn't. It does however mean that the opportunity cost is unknowable.
.
- - I do this for a living. You don't.
.
Yes, based on actuarial tables which are compiled according to careful measurements and tabulation of statistic evidence like census data, death rates, accident rates, etc. Seriously Darin - are you claiming to have such knowledge of terrorist actions, intelligence gathering, and the failure rates vs effectiveness of torture techniques?
.
- - It is unequivocal that there is an opportunity cost for not torturing terrorists.
.
OK, then it is EQUALLY unequivocal that there is an opportunity cost FOR torturing 'suspected' terrorists. Try actually listening to the voicces coming from the 'boots on the ground' who actually do this for a living. What they are saying is that, by pissing away our humanity, our moral high ground, our image as 'defender of human rights' and using 'terror' to get what we want, we are causing the overall number of 'terrorists' and 'terrorist sympathizers' to increase exponentially - and that we are motivating both new and existing terrorists to be more ambitious, more emboldened, more desirous of death and carnage for us.
Posted by Lillian at 04/24/2009 @ 7:27pm
What I'm reading from all of the 'professionals' in the military, in intelligence, in counter-terrorism, is that we've increased the carnage and death toll on our selves, our friends, and our allies.
There's your 'opportunity cost' Fat Darin...
...and not 'unknowable' - but all too real.
Posted by Lillian at 04/24/2009 @ 7:28pm
..and not 'unknowable' - but all too real. Posted by Lillian at 04/24/2009 @ 7:28pm
Good job Lillian. You are clearly doing your research. You go, girl.
Posted by ficheye at 04/24/2009 @ 7:37pm
amazing. If one cannot find a link to Hitler, go with the Clinton era. MASK, what would that be called?
Posted by crabwalk at 04/24/2009 @ 4:49pm
monica's law....
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/24/2009 @ 7:42pm
" It is simply designed to appease the far left, distract the far right and keep all of us from focusing on the real deception, the wholesale theft of our wealth, liberty and future."
but authorizing torture, in secret, and then lying about it, isn't deceptive at all. and (obviously) only those on the "far left" care about the rule of law.
Posted by darladoon at 04/24/2009 @ 9:08pm
they tortured people without having a translator present to translate the screams of the captives. think on it.
Posted by emile duBois at 04/24/2009 @ 9:12pm
That voracity has been questioned by :
boy was he ever hungry.
veracity is the word you were looking for.
Posted by emile duBois at 04/24/2009 @ 9:16pm
http://www.democrats.com/special-prosecutor-for-bush-war-crimes
Posted by hsuBfools at 04/24/2009 @ 9:50pm
Your side does not get to argue about prohibiting torture while pretending it has no cost.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/24/2009 @ 12:21pm | ignore this person | warn this person
.
And yet AGAIN with the BS Fat Darin.
YOUR side does not get to argue about the effectiveness of torture while basing such argument on pure fiction, while ignoring all evidence to the contrary from those who are actually versed in the art and science of interrogation, and while pretending that very act of resulting to torture carries no cost itself.
Name one case Darin - one - where the use of torture was the only way possible to gain actionable intelligence which resulted in saving lives. You can't - the best you can do is pretend that Dick Cheney would never lie and trust him completely without evidence of any kind - while choosing to completely IGNORE all evidence to the contrary presented by a multitude of professionals, including professionals who were present during these investigations, who have refuted Cheney. (Ali Soufan - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/opinion/23soufan.html)
Crab got it exactly right - your argument rests soley on the attachment of your lips to the rectums of Bush and Cheney.
Posted by Lillian at 04/25/2009 @ 12:34am
Crab got it exactly right - your argument rests soley on the attachment of your lips to the rectums of Bush and Cheney. Posted by Lillian at 04/25/2009 @ 12:34am
And it requires far more than just mouthwash to remove the taste of that funky adventure...
Posted by ficheye at 04/25/2009 @ 12:59am
One last thought...regarding WHY torture was authorized.
Throughout history, many have ordered the use of torture. Clearly, in many such cases, the motivation to torture was based in vengeance. In other cases, there was a clear sense by the torturers that their victims were 'less than human'. Etc.
I'd like to think that pure 'revenge' wasn't the motivation - although that is a distinct possibility. I'd also like to think that our leaders understand the basic concept that we are all human and worthy of some measure of dignity and respect - even if we are enemies (even though we see ample evidence here on this board that those who follow such leaders clearly don't share the notion of respect based on a shared humanity.)
I'd rather believe that other factors led to the disasterously WRONG decision to authorize the use of torture. Specifically, hubris, arrogance, and incompetance - traits exhibited in ABUNDANCE through the past 8 years of BUSHCO.
They simply ignored the advice and counsel of the professionals who have been doing this for years and instead, thought THEY knew better and could take whatever 'shortcuts' they thought might work.
Truely effective interrogation takes time - to build trust and a relationship between the suspect and the interrogator - and the process is open ended in that nobody can predict how long it will take to reach the level of trust that will trigger information flow.
Torture gives the illusion that the interrogator is in control and can 'force' the flow of accurate information...
...and the Cheney/Rumsfeld folks, blinded by their arrogance, didn't recognize that they lacked the experience to tell the difference between true expertise and illusion.
Posted by Lillian at 04/25/2009 @ 01:01am
Morality is not conditional. If it was immoral to do something yesterday, then regardless of the circumstances, it is still immoral today. Otherwise, what is the point of having all these laws and treaties anyway? Everyone should just be able to do whatever the hell they want and everybody else be damned, because everyone's morals are constantly changing? Is that the world YOU want to live in?
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 04/24/2009 @ 1:43pm
The "best" morality in our imperfect world is always conditional.
Telling the truth rather than lying to protect the life of a hiding innocent whom the Gestapo in WW2 Germany was seeking would be immoral.
Stealing food to feed one's starving child is more moral than not stealing and allowing one's child to die. (This sort of "relative" morality has biblical support).
Torture, in certain circumstances, may be more moral than not using it to prevent the loss of many lives.
In different circumstances the same activities would clearly be immoral. One thus needs to give morality a much broader and more meditative approach than a list of prohibitions. Another way of looking at morality is to observe that it is not only the "sins" of commission but also of omission that more fully define it.
If you take the time to read through the UN CAT you will find that it is not a written in stone document but one in which qualifications of all sorts are raised. Thus, even in that document, states are encouraged to examine each harsh interrogation method in terms of certain conditions and qualifications to establish the acceptability or not of each method. So that one person's torture may be no more than a nuisance to another.
Posted by lrjones4 at 04/25/2009 @ 03:31am
Well, I'm convinced! Welcome to the Fourth Reich!
Everybody leave their accents at the door... we'll throw another shrimp on the (Claus) Barbie for ya!
Posted by ficheye at 04/25/2009 @ 04:04am
I'd also like to think that our leaders understand the basic concept that we are all human and worthy of some measure of dignity and respect - even if we are enemies
Posted by Lillian at 04/25/2009 @ 01:01am
It's like you are a self-parody of the clueless liberal. You do understand the the objective of WAR is to kill the enemy don't you?
You are trying to lecture my about listening to people -- experts, aka boots on the ground. "Boots on the ground" is a phrase a general said once and then Liberals parroted endlessly to create the impression they know what they are talking about when they don't. Do you know anyone personally who ever wore combats boot because they were a soldier and not because they were trying to be ironic?
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/25/2009 @ 06:52am
Darin found a way to blame it on a Clinton official.
amazing. If one cannot find a link to Hitler, go with the Clinton era.
Posted by crabwalk at 04/24/2009 @ 4:49pm
Hey Crabman!
Way to change the subject.
This issue isn't whether Clinton or Bush is to blame: The issue is whether I could demonstrate the existence of a single person who had prior knowledge of an impending terrorist attack.
I did. I also conceded a point on your arguement that in trying to assess the oportunity cost of not torturing that individual, one would also have to factor in whether other methods might procured the same information without torture.
In this particular instance of a terrorist with prior knowledge of an imminent terrorist attack, it turns out that there were other methods to secure the information.
I was lamenting the fact that someone who thought the cost of violating a human's (not an American citizen's) constitutional rights to privacy outweighed the opportunity cost of reading his computer. Clearly, that judgement was wrong.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/25/2009 @ 07:01am
They simply ignored the advice and counsel of the professionals who have been doing this for years and instead, thought THEY knew better
Posted by Lillian at 04/25/2009 @ 01:01am
Wait, are you saying the US has professionals who have been torturing people for years. And the problem for Cheney isn't that he tortured, it is that he did it wrong?
Sure you have proof that the "experts" every single one of them had an identical opinion to yours.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/25/2009 @ 07:04am
monica's law....
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/24/2009 @ 7:42pm
: )
veracity is the word you were looking for.
Posted by emile duBois at 04/24/2009 @ 9:16pm
What would I do without you?
Posted by crabwalk at 04/25/2009 @ 08:01am
What would I do without you? Posted by crabwalk at 04/25/2009 @ 08:01am | ignore this person | warn this person
you will have to excuse me. after around 55 years, english is still a bright shiny toy for me. you could call me voracious for english.
Posted by emile duBois at 04/25/2009 @ 08:46am
"No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture"
from Convention Against Torture, a law which the US signed, under Saint Reagan
Posted by emile duBois at 04/25/2009 @ 10:29am
Posted by emile duBois at 04/25/2009 @ 08:46am
No excuse necessary. I appreciate the correction.
Posted by crabwalk at 04/25/2009 @ 10:53am
For once Mr. Nichols, I agree with your analysis. In every respect, Dick Cheney was a great veep. He has never been suspected of any wrongdoing of any sort and as to the way he handled his connection to Halliburton while in office, he did not make that much money out of it anyway.
Those who await for the exposure of Dick Cheney will end up disappointed. One may ask : "Why does the Crackfox speaks of Dick Cheney which such respect and with such confidence ?"
The thing is that I, the Crackfox, have met with the man. He was charmed by my personality. And, subsequently, I have met his closest associates and someone became part of the inner circle of the White House.
It all happened a fortnight before the 2000 presidential election. On the surface I was leading a very dull life at that time. But when one has to keep in mind that the Crackfox is the master of everything about him and always keen on hiding his inner turmoil from the eyes and understanding of others. And indeed my mind was in turmoil, I was undergoing a very serious crisis. Autumn 1999 and thereafter had been peaceful by I could feel anxiety growing inside my heart. In the months that followed my 80th I was getting more and more worried. Why ? Let me explain.
Most urban foxes eat out of trashcans. But I've always liked the better stuff. Warm pizzas, cheeseburgers, you name it. But it takes money to eat good food and it was about time for me to find a job.
I will tell hereunder. But first, I have to go open the door. It's maybe my landlord coming for the rent.
Posted by crackfox at 04/25/2009 @ 11:15am
Posted by crackfox at 04/25/2009 @ 11:15am | ignore this person | warn this person
you must be smoking that stuff. crack is whack. crackfox too.
Posted by emile duBois at 04/25/2009 @ 11:21am
it is clear that you know nothing about crack.
Posted by emile duBois at 04/25/2009 @ 11:46am
All of the rhetoric about torture is nonsense. The Bush administration went to the Congress Security council and they knew all about everything and there were no objections. Obama just made, at the pressure of the ACLU and Move On, a dangerous decision to throw the CIA under the bus. How about the 3,000 people killed on 911 and their families? They were trying to prevent another attack and they did. We are no better than a two bit dictator country who go and jail their predecessors. Does the Obama administration want to assure that this will happen to them once they leave office? His "I am not Bush" blame game will eventually bring him down. He is ramming through congress programs we can't afford with no input from anyone, canceled the middle class tax cut, will not renew Bushes tax cuts to all of us, will cause our energy bills to skyrocket in the future and is nationalizing our banks. This is about Obama's vision for us not what we have always been. When he gets finished we will not recognize our country. I am really worried about my country and certainly do not feel safe any more.
Posted by Katie10 at 04/25/2009 @ 11:58am
Posted by crackfox at 04/25/2009 @ 11:15am
You should do OK here. You are amongst mostly fellow liberals. The beautifully coherent way you put words together will make you the envy of and a template for all the liberal bloggers.
I'm sure, if I were not on the other side of the fence and a linguist, I would be edified not only by the amazing breadth of your knowledge but also thrilled by the sheer brilliance of your thought processes.
BTW using a foreign language to convey your thoughts was certainly a mark of erudition. Well done.
Posted by lrjones4 at 04/25/2009 @ 12:13pm
"All of the rhetoric about torture is nonsense"
oh, yeah, total nonsense. i mean, come on, the convention against torture AND the geneva conventions both say, quite clearly, that waterboarding is torture.
and, you know, we totally waterboarded. and we admitted it, openly, numerous times. it's also in memos and the tapes. but, who needs more evidence?
all of this "rhetoric" and talk of investigations and prosecutions is just a waste of time. who has time for laws and treaties? especially for brutal and inhumane interrogation techniques? that stuff is for wussies.
Posted by darladoon at 04/25/2009 @ 12:24pm
thanks to bush, americans nowadays actually debate whether A = A.
Posted by darladoon at 04/25/2009 @ 12:26pm
Posted by crackfox at 04/25/2009 @ 11:15am You should do OK here. You are amongst mostly fellow liberals. BTW using a foreign language to convey your thoughts was certainly a mark of erudition. Well done. Posted by lrjones4 at 04/25/2009 @ 12:13pm
Come on LR. This guy is just nuts. I don't see any point of view there at all.
Your posts are usually fairly well thought out, mate.
Posted by ficheye at 04/25/2009 @ 1:14pm
Do you know anyone personally who ever wore combats boot because they were a soldier and not because they were trying to be ironic?
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/25/2009 @ 06:52am | ignore this person | warn this person
.
Fat Darin, ad hominem attacks become you so.
I'm FAR from clueless Darin.
And yes, I know many, including most of the males in my family - and my father who served in the Army for 37 years and 2 wars.
Posted by Lillian at 04/25/2009 @ 2:04pm
Wait, are you saying the US has professionals who have been torturing people for years. And the problem for Cheney isn't that he tortured, it is that he did it wrong?
Sure you have proof that the "experts" every single one of them had an identical opinion to yours.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/25/2009 @ 07:04am | ignore this person | warn this person
.
Wow, for someone hwo was recently prettling on in an ego-inflating rant about thier 'prowess' in logic - you sure are clueless when it comes to reading comprehension. (Hint - nothing I wrote even comes close to "the US has professionals who have been torturing people for years. And the problem for Cheney isn't that he tortured, it is that he did it wrong?")
And yes, there is ample evidence that the vast majority of experts in intelligence gathering and interrogation share my view of the efficacy and efficiency of the use of torture. (Which, BTW, is where my view on the subject comes from.)
Gee Darin - is it that you never read anything from which you might learn...
...or that you simply lack the reading comprehension skills required? (see above)
Posted by Lillian at 04/25/2009 @ 2:12pm
I will tell hereunder. But firtht, I hath to go open the door. Ith's maybe my landlord coming for the rent.
~Sylvester "crackfox" at 11:15am
Loved that bit of pyschedelia. I haven't "talked to Cidney" myself in many years.
Posted by b_kool_66 at 04/25/2009 @ 2:33pm
Mr. Nichols:
What would be incredibly informative on this subject is to know what public opinion, especially conservative opinion, had to say about torture during, and prior to, the denials of the Bush administration concerning said torture.
Most conservatives posting here seem to be all for it. It would be interesting to see what bloggers were saying 6-8 years ago on this topic. If you have archived any of this stuff for any reason it might be a defining moment of hypocrisy and a sliding scale opinion index to see what the thoughts of 'those on the right' were before now.
Posted by ficheye at 04/25/2009 @ 2:36pm
The Bush administration went to the Congress Security council and they knew all about everything and there were no objections.
if not a single person in the US, hell the world, objected to torture, it would still be against the law and the torturers will still be criminals.
that's how this law thing works.
Posted by emile duBois at 04/25/2009 @ 3:16pm
I guess I'm referring specifically to the conservative bloggers here at the nation.
I'm just trying to pierce the veil of hypocritical thinking.
There's a lot of folks here that just seem to think it's a beautiful thing. I am wondering what they might have thought about it before we actually did it.
I, of course, am on the 'it sucks and is illegal' side of the topic.
Posted by ficheye at 04/25/2009 @ 4:42pm
Come on LR. This guy is just nuts. I don't see any point of view there at all.
Your posts are usually fairly well thought out, mate.
Posted by ficheye at 04/25/2009 @ 1:14pm
There is a view over here that Americans have no sense of humour. Others apparently take life too seriously. Which may not be the same thing. Then others, it seems, can't see a hole in a ladder. Not sure where to fit you.
p.s. I think 'this guy" was having us all on.
Posted by lrjones4 at 04/25/2009 @ 8:09pm
"I think 'this guy' was having us all on."
~LR Jones
I say old chap, that was a right brilliant deduction.
How's the weather in...... Melbourne was it? I happened to catch the Australian Open a while back and the roof of Rod Laver stadium was closed because of wicked temps.
Posted by b_kool_66 at 04/25/2009 @ 8:20pm
How's the weather in...... Melbourne was it? I happened to catch the Australian Open a while back and the roof of Rod Laver stadium was closed because of wicked temps.
Posted by b_kool_66 at 04/25/2009 @ 8:20pm
Pretty cool today about 12 C (about 54F) at noon but has been pretty good apart from a few scorchers around the time of the Open.
Beautiful one day. Perfect the next. As the ads say.
Posted by lrjones4 at 04/25/2009 @ 9:46pm
F, you also seem to have run out of serious intelligent contributions to this discussion as you are now doing a Mask impersonation.
An interesting read is to be found in some of the Senate investigations into the differences in interrogation policy between the FBI and the DOD.
The FBI is generally thinking in terms of getting the prisoner to court and thus, because the evidence would be inadmissible, is not interested in coercive methods of interrogation, but rather seeks to build a prosecution case over time. Thus even in the case of suspected terrorists that is the way it approaches interrogations. One needs to be aware of that inbuilt bias in favour of their own approach to interrogation and its influence on their opinions on the efficacy of each method.
The DOD on the other hand seems more intent on preventing 9/11 events and wants quick intelligence if it thinks the suspect is in the know about an impending attack.
It is still pretty hard to get a handle on what non coercive interrogation actually entails and one gets the impression that semantics is in play rather than real differences at the edges of the rather hazy boundaries between coercive and non coercive interrogation methods.
Posted by lrjones4 at 04/25/2009 @ 10:16pm
So Jonesey, have you always lived down unda around Melbourne way?
I'm curious as to where most Australians go for a vacation both within the country and without --say, top ten destinations.
I saw that during the Open, it appears that a large number of Bosnians and Serbs have moved into your area --a little tension broke out during the Djokavic/forgot-his-name(cool Bosnian dude) match. Many various Asians there too I gather, and Japanese tourists?
Any personal favorite places you've been to or lived at?
Posted by b_kool_66 at 04/25/2009 @ 10:23pm
"The American warrior class is openly and clearly in the crosshairs in a media campaign to denigrate them and cast dishonor upon them and, once again, America.
The aim of the release is to assault America in the court of public opinion, using the wholly owned media PR subsidiary as the armored assault vehicle. And the administration, through its acquiescence, is at minimum enabling this, choosing consciously to end the public defense of the American warrior class and its very legacy. Perhaps the administration is acting with willful disregard for them by taking direction from the ACLU/Soros/Moveon.org hard Left in a form of electoral quid pro quo. At worst, the administration is directly aligned with them and acting in concert rather than taking direction from them.
Either way, the principled defense of the warrior is over, by choice of the Obama administration in directing the Pentagon to end the defense short of SCOTUS. It is an outright abdication.
I say no. Not now, not ever. The Left got away with an all-out assault on the American veteran and military service during Vietnam. It will not happen again. And most certainly not from the military's own Commander in Chief. Not without a bold, determined, and passionate challenge the likes of which have never been seen.
For the exodus of good men and women from a military under assault from its own administration is likely to begin as service commitments come to an end. Retention just took a hit, as officers and NCO's alike begin to understand that they have been left in the wind. Recruiting just got more difficult.
The next logical step for this anti-military administration is to submit the American Warrior to the jurisdiction of a kangaroo International Criminal Court.
Posted by comancheamerican at 04/25/2009 @ 11:17pm
Don't think the American Warrior isn't watching and thinking. International law, rather than American sovereignty, is all the rage these days in the White House after all.
The Warrior will begin to question precisely what it is that he risks all to defend. And when faced with the fact that he may remain undefended in doing so, his risk expands and the once-booming clarion call to service reduces to distant whispers.
And that will be . . . the end."
Sounds to me like the American servicemen are saying that when the next attacks come, America is on its own! Maybe Obamanation and the Demoncrats new jackbooted brownshirts will protect you all!
Posted by comancheamerican at 04/25/2009 @ 11:20pm
Cheney. That dour, ruminative devil has been showing his face on TV for as long as I can remember. Is there anyone who can stand anymore of this advocate of Interactive Intel Procurement (not torture)?
Posted by Sorelish at 04/25/2009 @ 11:29pm
Nobody was tortured during the civil war? And you are certain of this. Nobody was totrued during the war of 1812?
Ever hear of scalping?
Ever hear of cruxifiction?
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll
I was referring to torture as an officially sanctioned Government action. Not private torture excursions.
Camp Douglas POW abuse would fall into this category. It was not the official position of the US Governmnet that POW's would be starved and abused.
An accurate comparison would be the torture of Guido Fawkes by the English Government. There were signed warrants ordering Fawkes be subjected to torture.
Scalping...A form of mutilation usually performed post-mortem so usually not a form of torture.
Crucifixon was used by Romans and in Fuedal Japan, and certainly other times and places, but I don't recall the US ever crucifying someone.
Posted by koroviev at 04/26/2009 @ 01:14am
So Jonesey, have you always lived down unda around Melbourne way?
I'm curious as to where most Australians go for a vacation both within the country and without --say, top ten destinations.
I saw that during the Open, it appears that a large number of Bosnians and Serbs have moved into your area --a little tension broke out during the Djokavic/forgot-his-name(cool Bosnian dude) match. Many various Asians there too I gather, and Japanese tourists?
Any personal favorite places you've been to or lived at?
Posted by b_kool_66 at 04/25/2009 @ 10:23pm
Yes. Lived in three Melbourne suburbs.
Don't have that info at my fingertips so here are some Aussie top tens from "The Top 50 Destinations of all Time".
Here's a sample:
TOP TEN COUNTRIES
1. Australia 2. Italy 3. France 4. India 5. Morocco 6. Thailand 7. New Zealand 8. Japan 9. US and Turkey 10.Greece
Australia by a country mile with the biggest winning margin in any of the categories. The beaches, the outback, the cities, the regions were all mentioned when our respondents explained why Australia got their vote.
TOP TEN CITIES
1. New York 2. Paris 3. Sydney 4. London 5. Tokyo 6. Florence 7. Bangkok 8. Barcelona 9. Prague 10. Dublin
Again, another clear winner. The Big Apple has fans everywhere, in all parts of the Australian industry.
And on it goes at: http://tinyurl.com/c7o9vo
My favourites? Don't get much out of sight seeing more of a social animal.
Liked parts of US (was at Penn State as a research student in the 1990s). Been to many places in Europe. A few times to St Peterburg, interesting place and good company.
The Blue Mountains, west of Sydney are impressive.
243 different ethnicities in Aus. So plenty of Bosnian, Serb, Asian etc migrants as well as tourists. But still mostly Anglo-Celtic.
Posted by lrjones4 at 04/26/2009 @ 03:56am
what they are not telling you, and what cannot be known now, is would normal techniques have produced the same results.
When asked to explain the "need" for torturing detainees the answer given by Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush was ..."We were afraid". Think about that.
Posted by crabwalk at 04/23/2009 @ 1:05pm
Just saw this one Crabs. Didn't realise you were on this thread. Don't know if you have followed my drift but I was thinking more in terms of what is morally right. As that cannot always be couched in simplistic abstract absolutes I'm interested in examining if and when coercive interrogation is the more moral option.
It seems axiomatic that if non coercive methods can get the same or better information in an acceptable time frame, then coercive methods are unnecessary and to use them in this context would be morally objectionable on the grounds of the gratuitous mental and physical abuse of the interrogated.
If however the only way of getting the information, in the time frame that was required to potentially save many lives, is to use coercive methods then it would be immoral to not use that method.
I find both sides almost equally unconvincing on which is the more effective way of getting actionable intelligence but I just noticed this piece in National Review. It is about a WP article in which expert supporters of the coercive method claim that the "West Coast Plot" was smashed, primarily through the use of coercive methods.
It would be helpful to get a bit of less redacted data on the effectiveness of each method. For me the jury is still out.
I read this Marc Thiessen article in WP. This is a defence against attacks upon that piece. Re your Bush/Cheney thing, he deals with that too:
http://tinyurl.com/czafsw
Posted by lrjones4 at 04/26/2009 @ 07:08am
And yes, there is ample evidence that the vast majority of experts in intelligence gathering and interrogation share my view of the efficacy and efficiency of the use of torture. (Which, BTW, is where my view on the subject comes from.)
Gee Darin - is it that you never read anything from which you might learn...
...or that you simply lack the reading comprehension skills required? (see above)
Posted by Lillian at 04/25/2009 @ 2:12pm
I keep telling people that I'm not very good with English.
And it wasn't an attack; it was a question. Thank you for answering it.
You should be very proud of your father. I am.
Now as to the rest of your answer, I am skeptical that you can "know" what you claim to know.
Suppose I said, "All of the CIA agents on non-oficail cover (NOC) agree with me that Valerie Plame wasn't covert."
Is is even possible to know who these people are much less what their opinion are.
Supposedly, the US has been using the School of the Americas for teaching Latin American dictators how to torture the collectivist agitators in their own countries. Are the teachers at this school experts who agree with you that torture doesn't work or are they not experts?
Because I have to assume most experts don't have their own shows on Fox News. The only famous experts I know of would be Stalin, Castro, Pol Pot, Kim Jung Il, Mao, Che, ...
And they are universally, enthusiastically believers in the effectiveness of torture.
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/26/2009 @ 07:38am
darin,
you finally made a point!
-- no one on fox news is an expert!
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/26/2009 @ 08:04am
Crucifixion was in use particularly among the Persians, Seleucids, Carthaginians, and Romans from about the 6th century BC to the 4th century AD, when in the year 337 Emperor Constantine I abolished it in his empire, out of veneration for Jesus Christ, the most famous victim of crucifixion.[2][3] It has sometimes been used even in modern times. wiki
In Japan, crucifixion was used as a punishment for prisoners of war during World War II. Ringer Edwards, an Australian prisoner of war, was crucified for killing cattle, along with two others. He survived 63 hours before being let down. [edit]
Posted by emile duBois at 04/26/2009 @ 10:38am
IN HIS OWN WORDS, SJ-ASSCLOWN [HEARTS] TERRORISM & THE TERRORIST SLAUGHTER OF LONDON 7-7-2005: "We need to prevent another 9/11. George W. Bush and Tony Blair's approach did that. Obama's won't." -- sjchermak, 4/23, 4:58pm
In light of SJ-ASSCLOWN's endless apologetics if not outright approval of 9-11, normal people can see that he is in fact the type of creep who could ask of Mrs. Lincoln, "Aside from that, how did you like the play?". George W Loser did not finish his vacation nor even call a security principles meeting after the TICKING BOMB of the August 6 memo was handed to him-And SJ wildly approves. However, SJ's continued sicko statements concerning the mass murder in London mark him as an outright danger.
SJ, you sick fuck, preach to these families that Blair "prevent(ed) another 9/11."
"BBC: 52 people were killed in the 4 bombs which exploded in London on 7 July 2005.
RUSSELL SQUARE: James Adams, Samantha Badham, Philip Beer, Anna Brandt, Ciaran Cassidy, Rachelle Chung, For Yuen, Elizabeth Daplyn, Arthur Frederick, Karolina Gluck, Gamze Gunoral, Lee Harris, Ojara Ikeagwu, Emily Jenkins, Adrian Johnson, Helen Jones, Susan Levy Shelley Mather, Michael Matsushita, James Mayes, Behnaz Mozakka, Mihaela Otto, Atique Sharifi, Ihab Slimane, Christian Small, Monika Suchocka, Mala Trivedi
TAVISTOCK SQUARE: Anthony Fatayi-Williams, Jamie Gordon, Giles Hart, Marie Hartley, Miriam Hyman Shahara Islam, Neetu Jain, Sam Ly, Shyanuja Parathasangary, Anat Rosenberg, Philip Russell, William Wise, Gladys Wundowa
ALDGATE: Lee Baisden, Benedetta Ciaccia, Richard Ellery, Richard Gray, Anne Moffat, Fiona Stevenson, Carrie Taylor
EDGWARE ROAD: Michael Brewster, Jonathan Downey, David Foulkes, Colin Morley, Jennifer Nicholson, Laura Webb"
Posted by PhilMcCrevice at 04/26/2009 @ 10:51am
you can add the name of the man the police murdered "by mistake"
Posted by emile duBois at 04/26/2009 @ 11:08am
"The American warrior class is openly and clearly in the crosshairs in a media campaign to denigrate them and cast dishonor upon them and, once again, America"
it's hard to tell if this person is referring to the "warriors" like kagan, kristol, goldberg, et al, or the soldiers fighting in iraq and afghanistan. though i'm pretty sure he means the latter, in which case, what an absurd, irrational argument.
so obama INCREASES defense spending, beefs up troops and support in afghanistan, continues secret rendition, continues wiretapping, INCREASES veterans' spending, and he is "anti-military"?
Posted by darladoon at 04/26/2009 @ 2:17pm
you finally made a point!
-- no one on fox news is an expert!
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/26/2009 @ 08:04am
Hey Frosty, if making a logical error were a crime, you just committed a capital offense.
"I have to assume most experts don't have their own shows on Fox News."
If 49% of experts have a show on Fox is what I said still true?
Of course there are thousands of experts, but only dozens of shows on Fox. Assume every single show All dozens of them is hosted by an expert on torture, that still means there are thousands left.
So, is what I said still true?
Posted by Darin_the_Big_Fat_Troll at 04/26/2009 @ 3:22pm
"The American warrior class is...
a crock, there is no such thing. it's a bunch of poor shnooks who have no other path of economic advancement.
they are not covering themselves with glory over there.
Posted by emile duBois at 04/26/2009 @ 4:42pm
It almost amuses how, before spin, the military and intelligence officials were totally unified as to the fact, the truth as it were, regarding "enhanced" interrogation techniques.
Then the lie got repeated over and to a disgusting and ridiculous degree; to the point of nausea, over, again, that up was indeed, in point of fact, down.
"The agent, Ali Soufan, was known as one of the bureau's top experts on Al Qaeda. He also had a reputation as a shrewd interrogator who could work fluently in both English and Arabic. Soufan yelled at one CIA contractor and told him that what he was doing was wrong, ineffective and an affront to American values.
At one point, Soufan discovered a dark wooden "confinement box" that the contractor had built for Abu Zubaydah. It looked, Soufan recalls, "like a coffin." The mercurial agent erupted in anger, got on a secure phone line and called Pasquale D'Amuro, then the FBI assistant director for counterterrorism. "I swear to God," he shouted, "I'm going to arrest these guys!"
D'Amuro and other officials were alarmed at what they heard from Soufan. They fretted about the political consequences of abusive interrogations and the Washington blowback they thought was inevitable, say two high-ranking FBI sources who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters.
According to a later Justice Department inspector general's report, D'Amuro warned FBI Director Bob Mueller that such activities would eventually be investigated. "Someday, people are going to be sitting in front of green felt tables having to testify about all of this," D'Amuro said, according to one of the sources.
From We Could Have Done This the Right Way'
How Ali Soufan, an FBI agent, got Abu Zubaydah to talk without torture.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/195089
Posted by V at 04/26/2009 @ 5:09pm
"The American warrior class is...
a crock, there is no such thing. it's a bunch of poor shnooks who have no other path of economic advancement.
they are not covering themselves with glory over there.
Posted by emile duBois at 04/26/2009 @ 4:42pm
Why do you continue to spit upon (metaphorically) and otherwise denigrate other Americans for serving their country Emile?
I still cannot understand with all you have gained from coming to this country, why you continuously despise the men and women of the military who give their lives so you can be a jerk.
Posted by antisocialist at 04/26/2009 @ 6:06pm
"The American warrior class is...
a crock, there is no such thing. it's a bunch of poor shnooks who have no other path of economic advancement.
they are not covering themselves with glory over there.
Posted by emile duBois at 04/26/2009 @ 4:42pm
Why do you continue to spit upon (metaphorically) and otherwise denigrate other Americans for serving their country Emile?
Posted by antisocialist at 04/26/2009 @ 6:06pm
JR can't see that for many, a career in the military IS what they want.....for the love of it....like `starving artists'.... except the US military never starves.
He also can't see that for most, the military always represents an adventure and certainly a tryout of a possible career.....at little financial cost...unlike so many like him, who spent oodles of $$ majoring in fine arts, drama or performing arts but end up as (stupid) `starving artists'.
He also hates the US military for defeating his Nazi German Master Race relatives.
Posted by Happy at 04/26/2009 @ 6:32pm
There is a view over here that Americans have no sense of humour. Others apparently take life too seriously. Which may not be the same thing. Then others, it seems, can't see a hole in a ladder. Not sure where to fit you. p.s. I think 'this guy" was having us all on. Posted by lrjones4 at 04/25/2009 @ 8:09pm
LR, you know that one slipped by me completely :)
However I'm pleased to remain in the 'not sure where to fit you' category. I'm happy there.
As far as having no sense of humor, I just think we have completely different takes on what is funny. No worries, mate. We'll just slip another shrimp onto the (Klaus) Barbie! Then Jesus will wave the holy doohickey and she'll be apples... fair dinkum!
Posted by ficheye at 04/26/2009 @ 7:08pm
There is a view over here that Americans have no sense of humour.
that's why All the great comics in the english language were and are Australian, er,Austrian, er, whatever
Posted by emile duBois at 04/26/2009 @ 8:13pm
Military Recruiting Numbers Climb in Weak Economy
But the military continues to prove that socialism sucks!! Total Big Brother Total-itarianism: free haircuts, free khakis, free dental, free housing, free medical. Just not the body armor and HumVee hulls they really needed. Socialism always falls short.
You lefties should wake up and realize, socialism ain't cool. Of those who go to Iraq and make the ultimate sacrifice, 75% Die in Iraq from Non-Combat Related Causes.
Socialism, gives new meaning to 'armed forces': one in three women service members are raped or sexually violated... Socialism just can't handle the truth of wild, unregulated, freedom-to-abuse seeking huMANity.
In the combat areas of Iraq and Afghanistan, too, many military women have been killed in "non-combat-related incidents" - AND not by the "enemy". Socialism did nothing to stop this, anymore than Dick Cheney helped out after Katrina. Neoconservativism and socialism are both a farce.
Even though helmets are available by the socialism barrack full, neocons say FREEDOM rules. If you don't want to wear a helmet, you're a rugged individual, have at it! :
Soldiers Non-Combat Fatalities Blamed On Motorcycles Says LA Bike ... is the highest rate non-combat related deaths in the military services ...
Posted by winyahn at 04/26/2009 @ 10:22pm
Posted by ficheye at 04/26/2009 @ 7:08pm
Was that an audition?
I did not say that was my view but I hear it expressed fairly regularly here. May be just one of those saying based on non coercive intelligence gathering that proves the point that the coercive stuff gives better results. Then again it might be promoted by Aussie comedians who didn't make it in the US.
Not sure that mine is a standard issue Aussie SoH but you've got to run with what you've been given.
Posted by lrjones4 at 04/27/2009 @ 12:07am
There is a view over here that Americans have no sense of humour.
that's why All the great comics in the english language were and are Australian, er,Austrian, er, whatever
Posted by emile duBois at 04/26/2009 @ 8:13pm
On no JR. Not another audition. What is this? The Amateur Hour? OK, OK... Your score is.....
(Rationale: I noticed F was losing the tempo on this thread so thought an adrenaline rush may help. Not sure if it worked).
Posted by lrjones4 at 04/27/2009 @ 12:18am
Phil McCrevice vented up above....He called me sick.....
However, he has demonstrated that he is a typical leftist and also a sick individual.
It apparently has not entered the man's mind to blame the Muslim extremists that were to blame for the 7/7 attacks in London.
Some of this, I guess, is typical leftist belief. Do not blame the criminals, anoint the criminals as victims, and blame either "society" or blame the person the leftist hates anyway, in this case Tony Blair.
Criminals blow up stations on the Underground, so the immediate thought is that we should not have done what made the criminals and extremists, who hate us and want us dead, angry.
Forgetting they are angry already.
These were British muslim extremists. In recent years there has been considerable Islamic immigration into Europe, these people immigrating not to become part of British society, or French society, but just to live in better conditions. Once in Europe, they fully expect Europe to comply with their way of life.
They want to have stopped the teaching of the Holocaust, a part of history, in public schools - no problem - they demand, and the request is complied with.
Extremists riot in France - then the French are wringing their hands and blaming themselves for not being "inclusive" or something like that.
Obviously, the extremists in the UK, home-grown, who want an Islamic world (with death to those not willing to comply), would take issue with our actions in Iraq. So they are angry, but only a sick person like Phil McCrevice thinks their anger is justified.
Posted by sjchermak at 04/27/2009 @ 05:58am
snowball666,
Excellent lecture. (sarcasm)
You seem to have no clue about some things.
Your cabdriver looked integrated in Paris. Probably your cabdriver was not among those who were rioting in France. It doesn't take Neocon logic to understand this.
You say the Muslims have been angry since WWII. You have put a short time line on things. They have been pissed for 1,000 years, since the Crusades. They have been nursing grudges since then.
You say that the muslims are escaping poverty and gunfire in their native lands, becuase of guns we and the Russians sold.
So poverty is caused by gunfire, eh?
Poverty is caused by the regimes that many of them live under, who keep the people in abject poverty, not blameable on the U.S., or in this case, not even the Russians.
You mention about your blame for Tony Blair. I am not talking about your blame, but Phil McCrevices and other leftists, with regard to 7/7. These extremists kill people, and many leftists look to blame others besides the extremists themselves.
You say we are supposed to understand why they are mad. There are many people who KNOW why they are mad, and do not consider their anger justified. (Such as me).
What they (the Muslim extremists) need to understand is that we are mad too, now, and will not tolerate their anger any more.
A lot of your perception can be steortyped as typical leftist perception. Your post above shows this, but as always, your post also says "You can't label me!".
Posted by sjchermak at 04/27/2009 @ 09:42am
SJ-ASSCLOWN IS AT THIS VERY MOMENT DOING A COVER OF AN OLD DOOBIE BROS SONG. HE WILL CALL IT..."JIHAD IS JUST ALLRIGHT WITH ME".
In SJ-ASCLOWNS's own words: "We need to prevent another 9/11. George W. Bush and Tony Blair's approach did that. Obama's won't." -sjchermak, 4/23, 4:58pm
The most hardcore jihadi would agree heartily with SJ-ASSCLOWN's glowing assessments of George W Loser's and Tony Blair's performance in the domain of security. In Blair's case, SJ continues without the merest hint of embarrassment or shame to praise what Blair "accomplished" in this sphere.
Numerous posters have pointed out repeatedly that the W.Loser-Blair approach of torture is a travesty toward the best interests of the populations of the US and UK (most recently: V at 04/26/2009 @ 5:09pm). This is information and commentary that derives from professionals who have dedicated lives and careers to the project of protecting the public, serving their nation and its adminstration of order and safety.
But sicko jihadi symps like SJ-ASSCLWON will have none of that. They do not give a shit what is best practice in a confrontation with terror. They mock the professionals who seek to shield and protect the public. Instead, they wave around discredited moronic bumper sticker puppy shit from mouth-breathing bloggers, Rush & Ass-Coverer-In-Cheif Dick Cheney. These slogans are garbage that would insult the intelligence of any adult with self-respect, but the likes of SJ act as if it came down from Mt Sinai because it confirms their disgusting rightwing view of humanity.
Jihadis need the NeoClowns. The NeoClowns need the jihadis. They are silent partners in keeping each others sicko industry of death and destruction going. And that is why SJ sings "JIHAD IS JUST ALLRIGHT WITH ME"
Posted by PhilMcCrevice at 04/27/2009 @ 09:51am
Hey Phil,
No, jihad is not allright with me.
I guess it is with you.
You talk about the professionals who seek to shield and protect the public - I guess a reference to your belief that the things the previous administraton did that meet with such disfavor by you on the left actually harmed the effort to sheield and protect the public.
That is what one percieves is the point you are making after one wades through your convoluted speech.
BUT, in other venues, such as in your last post before this, and with snowball666's post, and posts of many others, there is nothing that any professionals should be seeking to shield and protect us from to begin with.....
If someone seeks harm to us, according to those sentiments, it is OUR fault to start with... we make people angry.
So, at various times, the pronoucnements from the left are not consistent.... the previous administraton is said by the left to have done things that make us less safe, implying that the left feels there still is a need to make us safe from those who do us harm...... but at other times the sentiment from the left is that we are safe now if we would stop making people angry, anyone who means us harm has a legitimate gripe caused by us to begin with.
I guess the CONSISTENT theme is that the angry left will rant and rave at it's opponents, and blame anybody that is not ideologically consistent with leftist belief, while letting all know it is never the fault of the left.
These observations have not been determined by me reading Neocon publications, but by reading the blogs on The Nation.
Posted by sjchermak at 04/27/2009 @ 10:32am
He also can't see that for most,
most? prove it.
the military always represents an adventure
you mean like being a guard in abu ghraib or sitting in a trailer in las vegas blowing up kids in pakistan?
and certainly a tryout of a possible career.....
neither cheney nor bush thought so...
at little financial cost...
except for duped americans who have to pay for this boondoggle.
unlike so many like him, who spent oodles of $$ majoring in fine arts, drama or performing arts but end up as (stupid) `starving artists'.
yeah! they should have joined the military so they could end up homeless and psychotic!
He also hates the US military for defeating his Nazi German Master Race relatives.
speechless.
Posted by Happy at 04/26/2009 @ 6:32pm
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/27/2009 @ 11:12am
sjchermak at 04/27/2009 @ 10:32am
You really are fucking stupid, SJ. The kind of stupid that is DANGEROUS because it gets people killed & maimed. That kind of fucking stupid. I will try to make the differences as simple as possible, knowing that in your case they can never be simple enough.
WE abhor violence and denounce all targetting of civilian life as it is always wrong. Conflict & war have rules that the smart players follow. However, YOU love violence, terrorism, & mass murder because they are rightwing causes & methods. YOU love terrorism because it spurs the irrational spirits. And because it allows a weakling like YOU, so disgruntled & deeply resentful, to play the part of kapo. When YOU think that someone in authority will wink at your ignorance, your simmering prejudices, your attempts to harm other people, YOU are thrilled.
So, when Al Qeada attacks America and sluaghters thousands, YOU are secretly pleased. Because YOU want to see places that you cannot find on a map attacked, occupied, its people beaten into the dust with violence--in the case of Iraq, even though it has been endlessly explained to YOU here that it had nothing to do with 911. Because YOU love terrorism and YOU love wanton violence for reasons stated above.
After Al Qeada, a rightwing group with rigthwing anti-people methods, struck America, YOU defended George W Loser's security policies. YOU continue to do so & loudly. YOU farted out apologetic after apologetic about the lack of preparedness following the August 6 memo and a summer of hire-on-fire chatter. 1000s died in the most spectacular terror attack in history & YOU defend W's every move before & after. And trumpet Bliar's policies as a security succes. So YOUR "thinking" is in 100% correspondence with a jihadi twin.
Posted by PhilMcCrevice at 04/27/2009 @ 1:08pm
Rationale: I noticed F was losing the tempo on this thread so thought an adrenaline rush may help. Not sure if it worked). Posted by lrjones4 at 04/27/2009 @ 12:18am
You must be bored. This thread lost it's tempo about 40 posts ago. I've got no issue with you. Usually when someone makes a surreal posting like the one that started this sub-commentary it gets ignored or starts a bout of philosophy.
I think it was the unnecessary swipe at 'libs' that seemed kind of out of place. I didn't think that you could tell much of anything from the text as far as political leanings went, so it seemed like a potshot into the underbrush to see what would fly out. Whatever. Sometimes I think that conservatives are borrowing some 'talibanesque' methodologies when they describe anything that doesn't fit neatly into the right wing ideology as 'liberal'. I guess that flying kites and playing music will be next. Or telling jokes. Time to go into the never-never all Pat Malone and take a break from all of this.
Posted by ficheye at 04/27/2009 @ 1:09pm
Gee, what possible impact Cheney's secret oil meetings could have had..... Hmmmmm........ Let's see... 9-11? Since Cheney stated we needed something similar to Pearl Harbor to enable the White House to invade Iraq and guarantee monstrous profits for the oil companies. I guess $4 gas didn't affect anyone other than.........ALL OF US!!!!!!!!!! As far as liberals being stupid, that's impossible, being as the radical right-wingnuts have cornered the market on ignorance. Besides, isn't one of the reason you RRW-Ns hate us is "we-uns gots to much edge-uh-cummation? To much a that thar learnin'?"
Posted by mrpoizun at 04/27/2009 @ 1:16pm
Hey Phil,
You say ".....in the case of Iraq, even though it has been endlessly explained to YOU here that it had nothing to do with 911...."
But you forget, George W. Bush never said it was.
And you forget, I have mentioned it (this disconnect between what libs say and what Mr. Bush said or did not say) before.
And you forget, that we dealt with Iraq because it was the source of what would have been a future calamity that would have made 9/11 seem like child's play.
You forget, most all including Democrats and others in the world and even Saddam's own generals believed he had WMD.
And you forget, Saddam would not comply with efforts to make him explain his weapons program - if he said he had no WMD, where did the WMD he had go?
And you forget, that Saddam had apparently let his program go into abayence on purpose, to appear that he had no weapons so he could get back in the game someday
And you forget, that Hans Blix was wandering around Iraq and finding no weapons
And your forget that eventually the UN would have said, gee, Saddam has no more weapons, problem solved, glory be, we have disarmed him!!!
And you forget that then Saddam would have gone back to making weapons again, which was his intention, confirmed to us by people who worked for him.
And you forget that Saddam was cultivating ties to terror organizations, that would have gotten these weapons and KILLED PEOPLE WITH THEM
And you forget, that was why we stopped Saddam, to STOP THIS BEFORE IT HAPPENED.
This has been explained TO YOU AND OTHERS ON THIS SITE more times than I can count, yet it still does not sink in.
What is there about this you do not understand?
Posted by sjchermak at 04/27/2009 @ 2:04pm
From 'The Counterterrorism Blog'
It's a pretty remarkable story. Given Syria's support for Saddam in the run-up to the war and the Asad regime's ongoing efforts to support former regime elements after the fall of Baghdad, it wouldn't be surprising if some of Iraq's WMD actually made it to Syria.
While many still believe that Saddam transferred his WMD out of Iraq on the eve of the 2003 US invasion, however, to date, no evidence has been found to corroborate the theory.
So, No evidence. Only conjecture.
Posted by ficheye at 04/27/2009 @ 2:17pm
Posted by lrjones4 at 04/25/2009 @ 03:31am
lrjones - you speak of "relative" morality, which is what you describe. And while I certainly don't like relative morality (i.e. one person's moral act is another person's immoral act), I do understand that based on cultural beliefs, etc., relative morality certainly exists.
However, I spoke of "conditional" morality, which is what was practiced by our government under Bush/Cheney. Additionally, I am not comparing different culture's attitudes towards morality; I am only speaking of our own culture's attitudes towards torture (e.g. laws and treaties against it).
Conditional morality I would define as " doing the same (moral or immoral) act, when conditions or circumstances are different." For example, the United State of America believes that waterboarding inflicted by the Japanese upon our soldiers during WWII was a War Crime, but against Islamic "terrorists" is not. That's why I say morality (in a nation) cannot be conditional, or what is the point for the laws and treaties we have?
Aha...the the right wing would argue that the "war" we find ourselves in is different from WWII (as justification for throwing laws and treaties out the window)...and I would agree with that, which is why we shouldn't be using illegal WAR tactics against something that is better dealt with using PROPER intelligence gathering and police tactics.
Torture doesn't work, plain and simple, regardless of what Dick wants to believe. And as loath as I am to paraphrase a right-winger, as Sheppard (sp?) Smith said, "We are Americans and we don't f*cking torture!"
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 04/27/2009 @ 2:24pm
I guess the CONSISTENT theme is that the angry left will rant and rave at it's opponents, and blame anybody that is not ideologically consistent with leftist belief, while letting all know it is never the fault of the left.
Posted by sjchermak at 04/27/2009 @ 10:32am | ignore this person | warn this person
To steal someone else's MO (I apologize for not knowing who normally does this, but I give you total credit in absentia):
"I guess the CONSISTENT theme is that the angry RIGHT will rant and rave at it's opponents, and blame anybody that is not ideologically consistent with RIGHTEST belief, while letting all know it is never the fault of the RIGHT."
Just what we lived through 8 years of....and the Party of No just keeps on going...and going...and going....
Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 04/27/2009 @ 2:47pm
Just what we lived through 8 years of....and the Party of No just keeps on going...and going...and going.... Posted by Stephen_Carver1 at 04/27/2009 @ 2:47pm
Well put, Mr. Carver. I agree; It works even better the other way. I think that 'those on the right' are all taking selective amnesia classes.
And, as to CHERMAKS commentary, I went to a site that was pretty right wing ('The Counterterrorism Blog'), and, even though there is this adherence to a fantasy about the WMD's being moved to Syria, to date there has been no substantiation of this theory, even among red wingers.
And that's all we need to be convinced; hard evidence. I think that whatever weaponry Saddam had, it probably (conjecture) wouldn't have been very much or satellite intelligence (highly overrated), would have seen all of these WMD's on the move. He was just trying to not get blown up. They found some WW2 mustard gas though!
So to use your earlier device; CHERMAK, What is there about this you do not understand?
Posted by ficheye at 04/27/2009 @ 3:00pm
Hey Phil,
.....This has been explained TO YOU AND OTHERS ON THIS SITE more times than I can count, yet it still does not sink in.
What is there about this you do not understand?
Posted by sjchermak at 04/27/2009 @ 2:04pm
Just an observation, SJ......
Many Libs, Phil for sure, were born with only flash memories.....they lack hard drives.......:) Just look at their hero's need for a TelePrompter.
You're doing a great job of Re-Booting them, over and over and over and ov.........LOL!!
Posted by Happy at 04/27/2009 @ 3:06pm
SJ-ASSCLOWN is in major self-immolation mode:
"even Saddam's own generals believed he had WMD." --- Posted by sjchermak at 04/27/2009 @ 2:04pm
A trusted source of the first magnitude. In fact, America should craft its entire foriegn policy strategic thinking around...what Saddam's generals (say that they) believe.
Yes, it only makes sense to do that. So says SJ-ASSCLOWN.
Also notice that SJ cannot be bothered with saying w-h-e-n the brass supposedally said any of this. Before the invasion, it's bluffing when they don't have 'em. Afterwards, it is an effort to obtain a "golden parachute" from the occupiers, as also occurred after WWII when many people came forward from the Nazi ranks claiming to know all about Soviet (military/intell) capabilities. Gave some of them a lease on life.
"And you forget, that Hans Blix was wandering around Iraq and finding no weapons"
Posted by sjchermak at 04/27/2009 @ 2:04pm
Hell no, that's always front page. All that intel from George W Loser and Dummy ("we know where they [WMDs] are located". Dummy said it right on national TV). And UNOMVIV found zilch. Very, very telling about what was to come.
But enough scoffing at SJ's hand-wringing nonsense, informed by zero information or hard fact, just rightwing whining and self-pity. Let's ask him a few questions, shall we?
1-Name W-Loser AG John Aschroft's new DoJ pre-911 stated priorities in 2001 that addressed terrrorism. Don't miss any:
2-Name W-Loser AG John Aschroft's new DoJ pre-911 stated priorities in 2001 that addressed ... pornography. Again...don't miss any:
3-
Posted by PhilMcCrevice at 04/27/2009 @ 3:23pm
Hey, from the get go I thought the hsuB/cHeney admin were completely nuts or totally amoral. Apart from all the shit done leading up to 9/11, consider for a moment that these nuts were willing to send in a hundred thousand of our troops to either: 1. confront massive amounts of WMD at every turn, and then did it anyway, or 2. knowing no WMD was there to begin with, were willing to spend billions/trillions to occupy a desert full of radicals--- just to make personal bank controlling energy prices and war profiteering.
Is it any surprise they value humanity's moral and legal progress at less that 0!
However to document their every transgression would be priceless for us.
Posted by hsuBfools at 04/27/2009 @ 3:30pm
"What is there about this you do not understand?"
Posted by ficheye at 04/27/2009 @ 3:00pm
That's a good line, actually, but of course SJ-ASSCLOWN did not think of it for being hopelessly crippled in the cognitive department. Instead, it is safe to assume that he pilfered the phrase from Andrew Sullivan, circa 2001-2002, although Sullivan is an entirely different species from SJ where having a mind is concerned.
Correction for previous post: "UNOMVIV found zilch" should say "UNMOVIC".
Posted by PhilMcCrevice at 04/27/2009 @ 3:31pm
although Sullivan is an entirely different species from SJ where having a mind is concerned.
Posted by PhilMcCrevice at 04/27/2009 @ 3:31pm
Right arm!
Better not talk too loud about sj. Him mad at me! Ever been to the 'news source' he uses on occasion?
rightwingnews.com.
It always says 'Beating liberalism to death with a shovel and a smile'.
Now, why does that bring to mind a KKK rally? It's 'that don't tell me nothin' I don't wanna hear' mentality. Or maybe,' two wrongs don't make a right, but three do'. There are so many clever examples and not enough time.
Posted by ficheye at 04/27/2009 @ 3:49pm
ficheye and Phil,
What gets overlooked in your weighty analysis is that Saddam was going to build WMD again, thus it doesn't matter when/how Saddam got from having WMD to having no WMD, at least not WMD anybody could find.
It would be good if we found out someday, but the answer may never be determined.
What matters now depends who you are talking to:
1. For a Conservative, it is important that we stopped Saddam so he could not go back to making WMD, and having it get into the hands of terrorists, so they could kill us with it.
2. For a liberal, it matters that no WMD of any significant amount was found when we went into Iraq, so that the crucification of George W. Bush could begin. These efforts continue to this very day, even though Mr. Bush is no longer President. Lib angst and venom towards George W. Bush or other members of his administration will probably continue to the end of recorded time, whenever that may be. 500 years from now, there will be libs finding a reason to blame George W. Bush for something that happened 499 years from now.
To wrap up the last posting by ficheye, ficheye could not help but use one of the race cards all liberals carry with them at all times. There is nothing I have every said that in any way resembles a KKK rally, but as a lib ficheye makes a comparison anyway.
Suggestion to ficheye- if you really want to know what a KKK rally is like, go ask someone on your own political/ideological team, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va.
He can tell you all you may want to know about Klan rallies.
Posted by sjchermak at 04/27/2009 @ 4:45pm
He can tell you all you may want to know about Klan rallies. Posted by sjchermak at 04/27/2009 @ 4:45pm
Touche', CHERMAK. although I was more addressing the tone of that website rather than you, personally.
And since I'm not a die hard democrat, I wince not when Mr. Byrds ignominious past is being considered. people who are screwing up need to be brought into the light, although Mr. Byrd has tied to make amends for his past involvements, to his minimal credit, while Strom Thurmond, ardent racist and right wing demagogue never apologized for the searing hypocrisy of having a black 'love child'.
Oh well. Politicians, creatures of our own making!
Posted by ficheye at 04/27/2009 @ 5:04pm
Ah yeah, I still look back fondly at the articles of impeachment vote by the judiciary... And then that movies and books about the cover-up and crack-up! Great moments.
Wonder how naively funny the movie 'W' will look after the next few movies come out about all the sleazy, illegal and amoral stuff the hsuB/cHeney admin pulled off in secret. Talk about opportunity out of misfortune.
And considering there's no current Raygun tool around to plug the GOPee leakage; not to mention their running toilet noise, what are the odds new con repubs will get even more extremely looney fringe?
Which in turn answers any future argument-- how could the hsuB/cHneey admin have been soo sooo terribly bad... Well just look at the GOPee, oh well DUH!
Posted by hsuBfools at 04/27/2009 @ 5:22pm
Er, I meant the 'Nixon' articles of impeachment vote ...
Posted by hsuBfools at 04/27/2009 @ 5:27pm
sjchermak has signed up to be torturer in chief!
ready to cattle prod any liar, begger, thief!
hide your testicles, fingernails, tongue,
hide your wife, your friends, your pets, your young.
for if sj comes your way,
innocent or guilty,
they'll be hell to pay!
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/27/2009 @ 5:43pm
here is nothing I have every said that in any way resembles a KKK rally, but as a lib ficheye makes a comparison anyway. Posted by sjchermak at 04/27/2009 @ 4:45pm
But as a lib... here we go again. Nose hairs stuck in the keys again?
Hmmmm.... I seem to remember that you said something about black people not voting, or not caring about voting... I'll bet Phil could refresh the subject... at the time it seemed, well, a tad racist. Just a tad. Like being a little bit pregnant.
But I run the danger again of borrowing a race card, like in a game of 'go fish', and playing it. As you know, and as I constantly remind you, I wouldn't classify myself as a liberal per se, because there's a lot of stuff that needs fixin' on both sides, but I would, UNDER TORTURE, say that I was a liberal before I said that I was a conservative.
Posted by ficheye at 04/28/2009 @ 01:53am
ficheye,
You said above:
"........Hmmmm.... I seem to remember that you said something about black people not voting, or not caring about voting... I'll bet Phil could refresh the subject... at the time it seemed, well, a tad racist. Just a tad. Like being a little bit pregnant. ...."
Rather than Phil refreshing your memory on that, let me do so:
I NEVER SAID THAT, OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT, WHATSOEVER.
If you would take your head out of your ass, you would see that those thoughts are a construction of Phil McCrevice's imagination, only.
It is a convolution invented by him because of commentary about the election in Florida in 2000.
The idea that it was correct to uphold election law in Florida in 2000 rather than forget or ignore election law and let Algore continue to have recounts until kingdom come if he wanted has been morphed by Phil into the sentiment you falsely apply to me.
And that kind of morphing is absolutely typical of a lib, although Phil does it in a more bizarre way than the direct approach by most libs.
The machine recount had been conducted, and then Algores lawyers did not make a sufficient case to convince the courts of the need for any further recounts. The election was over, but the Florida Supreme Court, a left leaning court, said go ahead and recount some more, Algore - but then the U.S. Supreme Court overturned this, and the election was fairly over. Democrats and people way left of being Democrat than screamed that the election was stolen and the GOP denied Black people the vote.
Phil obviously believes the opposite on this, he believes Algore should have been granted more recounts, and this causes him to go into the me not wanting black people to vote routine, and with your head up your ass, you believe him.
Posted by sjchermak at 04/28/2009 @ 03:42am
FICHEYE 04/28, 1:53am,
Yes, you have the essentials correct. It is correct to define SJ-ASSCLOWN as a racial chauvunist. Neverthless, his undisguised contempt for African-Americans is probably a very faint echo of his visceral hatred for the billion or so people in the global Muslim belt. Ever the kapo, SJ-ASSCLOWN believes that he has been given a warrant to harrass these people by his TV/Radio role models.
In an exchange between SJ-ASSCLOWN and JOHN_SHAFT (my previous nom-de-guerre) during the Spring of 2008, SJ-ASSCLOWN stated without condition or qualification that there were no irregularaties worth noting with respect to the 2000 vote in Florida in mainly black districts. Evidence from investigative reporters (Jake Tapper, Greg Palast), the NAACP, and the DoJ which had even admonished Florida for this very reason in the past was simply waved away by SJ-ASSCLOWN as he had been instructed to do by his select MaximumThoughtLeaders who revile reality and the reality-based community. There is no meanignful disinction to be noted between SJ's clubbishly stupid recycling of rightwing gasbag grunting and saying "Blacks don't want to vote anyway, they just show up at the polls to mill around for a few hours".
Where the 2000 election is concerned, SJ has absolutely no grasp of the essential issues. His moronic claims are akin to mis-stating that it was a contest for Town Beauty Queen-2000 in a rural village of Peru. At issues was this: The FL Supreme Court called for a HAND RECOUNT in FL in all 67 counties. There had been NO HAND RECOUNT, state-wide, prior to this only machine counts. SCOTUS intervened the following day when the hand recount was still in progress in a diarhea panic that Gore would pull ahead in short order. 8+ yrs later, SJ still don't get it.
Posted by PhilMcCrevice at 04/28/2009 @ 08:43am
OHN_SHAFT (my previous nom-de-guerre)
the word you are looking for is nom de plume.
"Che" is a nom de guerre
Posted by emile duBois at 04/28/2009 @ 09:05am
More on SJ-ASSCLOWN...
His obsession with Saddam would be an embarrassment to an unattractive teenage girl who fantasizes endlessly over heart-throb Zack Efron. Fantasies, we should notice, that may even include some vigorous bouts of auto-stimulation as SJ whispers the name "S-S-Sad Aaamm-M-M" to heighten the sweaty excitement.
And although it may be a let down for SJ to hear it, since he is so hormonally obsessed with the now dead-as-a-doornail dictator, his starchy uniforms and cheesy facial hair...Saddam was not much of a strongman by 2003. No control over Iraq's airspace that head been patrolled for years by the US and UK (France for a time too). Imagine if the US airpsace was patrolled in the same way by a hostile power, with periodic bombing raids! There would be no question of vast political-military weakness in that instance.
So, we see that the muscular strongman, adored by SJ in his top-secret taboo of boy4man love, was also not even in control of Iraq in the further light of de facto independence for Mosul-Kurdistan begining in the 1990s.
Saddam was a sickly bastard but posed no serious menace beyond the borders of Iraq on which the Ba'athists had a tenous grip in the ways noted above. And that is what has kept SJ-ASSCLOWN in constant sweat of horror mixed with his taboo boy4man Saddam crush for the decade of the '00s -- a crush that has endured long after Saddam and the Ba'athist were out of the picture and George W Loser's NeoClown circus had become the lead author of today's Iraqi disaster of violence and mass exodus.
Posted by PhilMcCrevice at 04/28/2009 @ 09:07am
Posted by emile duBois at 04/28/2009 @ 09:05am
EMILE,
I debated which term to use and opted for irony over literalism in the world tongue <<le plus magnifique>>. Thanks for being the attentive reader!
Posted by PhilMcCrevice at 04/28/2009 @ 09:12am
impressionable young minds may be reading this blog. it is them that I serve.
Posted by emile duBois at 04/28/2009 @ 09:53am
♨
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/28/2009 @ 10:30am
ficheye,
One thing that Phil doesn't realize, and did not think about, is that my memory about past posts can be as good as Mask's sometimes.
Case in point - "John_Shaft" once referred to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as "Uncle Thomas".
I did point out to "John" at the time that he was a racist, which is true.
Thus, all the hyper concern that "Phil" exhibits now about the Florida election in 2000, and the race card throwing that "Phil" is engaging in now, is all at best unadulterated nonsense and in reality blatant hypocrisy.
I think "Phil" made a bit of a mistake by mentioning that he was John_Shaft, eh?
Posted by sjchermak at 04/28/2009 @ 11:56am
CHERMAK,
That's quite a stretch about the 'Uncle Thomas' thing. There's lot's of black folk who referred to him in that way as well, pissed off about his morphing personality and the alleged 'Long Dong Silver' comments. They shoved Anita Hill under the rug quickly enough and he made his way into a position where he now mostly grunts, says nothing, and helps to make conservative decisions.
I know! Let's ask emile. Is it racist to call Clarence Thomas an Uncle Tom? To me it just means being overly subservient and pandering unnecessarily to the white establishment. I've been wrong before, Something that you, CHERMAK would never admit to, even under threat of torture.
Posted by ficheye at 04/28/2009 @ 12:14pm
ficheye,
Black people can be racist, too.
It seems the common denominator for racism is liberalism.
White liberals look down with fawning condescension and fake compassion at Blacks, letting the Black people know that they can not get ahead (because the deck is stacked against them) without the help of they, the benevolent caring white libs.
Black liberals look at Blacks who are not lib with disdain and even hatred, implying that a Black person is not a real Black person if they are not lib. (The "Uncle Tom" remarks).
So it is six of one and half a dozen of another on this issue - either one of the two above is reprehensible and wrong.
That is why I called "John_Shaft" on this issue when "John_Shaft" used the words "Uncle Thomas".
I never saw any further reply from "John_Shaft" in that thread, but now I know that Phil McCrevices' bluster is not only bizarre and convoluted, but fake and phony as well.
You said yourself (about Uncle Tom remarks) "...To me it just means being overly subservient and pandering unnecessarily to the white establishment...." but you do not seem to realize that view is one that is through the prism of liberalism.
Some people view successful Blacks, if they are not liberals, as pandering to the white establishment. There is some implied racism in that, because why would it be assumed that if a Black is successful the success was obtained through pandering to whites?
It seems that is the automatic assumption, among some people. This happens in school, also, where if Black kids are successful in school or use proper English they are looked upon with disdain by other Black kids.
Somehow, among some, Black success equates to being less of a Black person.
You say you have been wrong before, and you are wrong now.
Posted by sjchermak at 04/28/2009 @ 12:56pm
You say you have been wrong before, and you are wrong now. Posted by sjchermak at 04/28/2009 @ 12:56pm
Ha. It would do no good to say that I wasn't a racist. Whatever you decide to be true is considered a fact by you, CHERMAK. But I am not racist, because it's wrong. But what's fun about this thread is that you seem to be painting yourself with some 'liberal' tendencies. There may be hope.... nah!
'Prism of liberalism'... that gets you a creative mark for the day, but it's clear that you are searching for new and subtler ways to define someone else as the bad guy when, in fact, this thread is really about the evil Dick Cheney opening his mouth too wide. Obviously he should have never suggested releasing all the memos... he just thought Obama would never do it. Stupid move, because Obama seemed to be ignoring that problem. But now that Cheney called him out, it may be that he screwed up. The last thing that the Bush Admin. needed was to have these memos brought into the light of day.
As to your puerile attempts to be 'right' and to declare someone else 'wrong', you still fall for being baited every time. All I had to do was use three letters... KKK. Off we went. Wasn't even talking about you. It's been fun!
Posted by ficheye at 04/28/2009 @ 1:18pm
ficheye,
To be fair to you, let me clarify my above post.
I am not identifying, or did not mean to identify, you as racist because of your definition of Uncle Tom... that is the typical definition.
What I meant by my remarks is that too many times people (Blacks or Whites) will assume a successful Black person got there by subservience to Whites, or "selling out", etc and thus are displaying racism by not considering the Black person got there on their own merits.
And in these cases, oftentimes, the label Uncle Tom is used.
Thus, many times and probably most times, it is used when it does not apply.
And, in the case of Justice Thomas, among the left the word is used to slam him.......I realize there are differences in political ideology and people on the left may not like Justice Thomas' opinions, but that does not mean he is an Uncle Tom.
Others, such as Condi Rice, got some pretty vile treatment as well, in fact most Black conservatives get some of this at one point or another....there is an automatic assumption that the person has "sold out" and does not have merit, just because they are Conservative.
That is where I am coming from with these remarks.
Posted by sjchermak at 04/28/2009 @ 1:20pm
ficheye,
My post came in after yours but was not in yet when I began my 1:20 pm post... I did attempt to indicate you were not being racist and did not get the post in fast enought.
I would like to point out that the only reason this conversation, on a thread about Dick Cheney, drifted off to Justice Thomas is because of Phil McCrevice's disclosure that he had been John_Shaft, and thus it was necessary to point out some of the history about John_Shaft's discourse and how it relates to "Phil"s bluster.
Sometimes convesations on these threads do drift off topic for valid reasons. It was a suprise to me that Phil is John_Shaft, but it opened up a door of opportunity for me to show that "Phil" or "John" or whatever is a total hypocrite.
As Yogi Berra said, when you come to a fork in the road, take it.
Posted by sjchermak at 04/28/2009 @ 1:25pm
No problem with that. All is well in Debatesville.
Posted by ficheye at 04/28/2009 @ 1:30pm
It was a suprise to me that Phil is John_Shaft
Posted by sjchermak at 04/28/2009 @ 1:25pm
no surprise.
you've shown a total lack understanding style.
substance, too.
oh well.....
you can type.
Posted by frosty zoom at 04/28/2009 @ 2:18pm
Posted by ficheye at 04/28/2009 @ 12:14pm | ignore this person | warn this person
C.Thomas is a creep, and he would be so if everyone in the world were black. same with Condi and Powell.
Posted by emile duBois at 04/28/2009 @ 2:33pm
I'd rather go hunting with Cheney than driving with Ted Kennedy.
Posted by apoorspic at 04/28/2009 @ 10:20pm