Third Party & Independents Archives

David,

Respectfully, I disagree. This action would completely derail his presidential agenda. It would stir a political firestorm that would revive the Republican party from it’s death pyre.

Obama cannot stop future presidents from doing illegal things. Only political outrage from the public can do so. If Americans want to prosecute Bush, they need to take to the street en masse.

This country has ignored the mass murder of Indians and the theft of their land, the abduction and slavery of Africans, and multiple other outrages. In terms of history, Bush’s transgressions were minor.

gergle, with respect, there HAS to be one law, equally applicable to ALL regardless of political or governmental station. Otherwise, we are no more than King George’s government which our colonies overthrew, once already.

There cannot be one law for politicians and another for the rest of us. There CANNOT be. I protest Obama’s actions in the strongest possible terms here.

I understand what you are saying. But, I can’t agree with it at all.

DRR
I think more people knew what was going on with the torture insident than we know about, and the problem that BHO has is not just Republicans will get burned but could be that some high level Democrats will be entering the furnace to.

KAP, that may be true. Then it again, it could just be another conspiracy theory. The point is, Obama’s explanation fails every test of logic, constitutional law, and smell, for all but the loyalists who think he can do no wrong. And therefore, we the people cannot let this issue go with his illogical and legally unacceptable explanation.

DRR
Very true, if in fact some of BHO’s buddies and cronies are in the mix is no excuse not to persue justice.

KAP, I just sent the following to the White House. I urge you and everyone to speak up similarly via this link.

“Why is my president refusing to investigate and prosecute crimes committed by elected officials? Since when, did Pres. Obama, whom I voted for, decide that there should be one law for government officials, and another for the rest of Americans?

My president says of the alleged crimes of torture by the previous administration, “I am a strong believer in looking forward, not backward.” OK. Then let’s apply the same legal standard to murderers, thieves, and rapists, who upon apprehension, say they won’t do it again, and let them go free, as well.

What good is it to have an education in our U.S. Constitution if our president is going to abandon its principles of justice for efficiency, convenience, or whatever other reasons in favor of the King’s minions, while applying an entirely different standard of justice to the citizenry?

I voted for Pres. Obama. I will not let this go as it stands. We fought a Revolutionary War to eliminate just such double standards by those in government. In the strongest possible terms, I urge my president to rethink and rectify this dual system of justice which gives a pass to government officials, while imprisoning the citizenry for their crimes. “

DR
I wondered when the bloom would be off the rose. BHO made a mistake. He should prosecute and then pardon if prudent. Though torture is probably the most repugnant crime committed by the Bush regime , I am sure there are plenty more. The Nixon pardon was also a grave error. It emboldened Reagan and Bush 1 and 2 to commit criminal acts in the knowlege they would never face prosecution.
With Nixon there was the argument that we did not want the US to look like a banana republic. That position was nullified when when GWB stole the election in 2000 with the aid of his brother and the corrupt justices appointed by his father. We are a banana republic and the same rules should apply.
In the RP they have an interesting post Marcos law. I love the post colonial use of archiac English here. The law is prohibition of “Plunder”, ripping off the country and carries the death sentence. Wheres Dick Cheney these days?

Bills,

You were doing so well until you blundered into the non-factual statement starting wtih ‘GWB stole the election…’

When are people going to accept the reality that Gore never won the election and never would have won even if the Supreme Court had not stepped in and rightfully enforced the 14th amendment on the proceedings? All that you end up doing is making yourself look like a ignorant partisan and invalidate in the minds of those reading you that you have any valid point to make at all? More, it makes one sound like a child in the playground crying about a toy that another is playing with and they want. A rather spoiled one at that.

Or is it worth all of that to hope that someday the non-factual might be accepted as fact? Seems a little petty to me…

Of course, there are still people who think we didn’t land on the moon, Kennedy was killed by someone on the grassy knoll and the US blew up the WTC. I guess if you are ok being lumped in with ‘those’ people who am I to stop you?

Perhaps, with the economy and two wars still going on, and a myriad of other troubles, Obama is concentrating on more important things???

Rhinehold,

You blew it with the moon landing analogy. That is scientifically verifiable fact. Kennedy’s death does have some issues with the way the investigation was done, and the election is still highly disputable….so actually those two events are quite similar. Kennedy is still dead and Bush still was a horrible president, and the Republican party did exploit the Florida election. Those are the only pertinent facts.

Bills how does one act of a pardon relate, That pardon cost Ford the election the consequences he was well aware of at that Time.

You blew it with the moon landing analogy. That is scientifically verifiable fact.

So was the fact that when counted as the State court direct, the election would still have gone for Bush. It is no longer ‘conjecture’ and hasn’t been for 8 years.

Kennedy’s death does have some issues with the way the investigation was done

Yes, but recent technology has proven out the fact that there was only one shooter, named Oswald. There is no longer any ‘conjecture’ surrounding this fact except by people who want there to be more to it.

and the election is still highly disputable

No, it isn’t.

so actually those two events are quite similar.

Yes, they are.

the Republican party did exploit the Florida election. Those are the only pertinent facts.

As much as the Democratic party did. Are you going to say that the Republicans were the only ones trying to win that election? What lunacy… Who sued the results initially? Who argued that non-legal votes should be counted as legal (which is what ended the recount as it violated the 14th amendment), who attempted to invalidate a bunch of absentee ballots that arrived BEFORE election day but didn’t have a postmark because of overseas mail issues?

Unlike Coleman/Franken recount, Gore never, ever, had a lead. And recounting the ballots later showed us that he would not have gotten it except in one very specific instance which was not asked for and would never have occurred.

I didn’t vote for Bush, nor did I particularly like him as a president, but at least I can understand what is factual and what is fantasy.

Let’s return the discussion and debate to the topic of the article folks.

Thanks

womanmarine, are you arguing that it is OK to suspend justice and law enforcement when a president gets preoccupied with other concerns?

David:

No. But I suspect there are priorities and allocation of time and resources. I would much rather see the economy straightened out than spend huge bucks on investigation and prosecution that frankly I don’t think we can afford right now, financially and for moral. If there are crimes, they aren’t going away, perhaps to be dealt with later.

Everyone is assuming there were crimes, we don’t know that that will be supported at the end of any investigation.

Whoops! I mean morale.

…

Are these the same people who wanted Bush impeached just a few short months ago? I can’t hardly recognize them anymore…

womanmarine, Obama needs only 10 seconds to direct his AG to investigate and bring charges if appropriate. The AG is not busy with the economy, Iraq, or Afghanistan.

Why do you think tax payers pay all those salaries for all those cabinet heads, and their minions?

Rhinehold, makes it easy to spot the partisans on a hunting trip regardless of grass height, doesn’t it?

David:

Could be. I don’t claim to know the priorities Obama has set for the AG. Do you? We are being pretty quick to judge here, but nothing new. Quick to judge is a national pastime.

I hear that one of the terrorist was tortured by having a cateriller put in his cell with him. Evidently, he is afraid of bugs. You would think that a guy who is willing to send young men on suicide missions to kill hundreds of civilians would be made of sterner stuff.

I saw a moth in my room the other day. Maybe the NYT should come and write a story.

Another of the hard guys was driven crazy by the sight of a pair of panties. I suppose these guys are only used to mens underpants in intimate situations. When they are beating woman, they evidently leave the clothes on.

I think what we have really learned is that Al Qaeda are really a bunch of panzies once they are separated from the killer club.

I am glad that those memos were released. We now know that anybody with a nasty little brother has been been “tortured” by the current standards. The only trouble is that now the bad guys know there is nothing to fear from U.S. interegation … unless they are scared of caterillars or women’s panties. Maybe we should send Osama bin Laden a bag of plastic spiders. Or maybe one of those snakes that springs out of the can.

Christine, your abject ignoring of the waterboarding, sleep deprivation, head slamming against walls, leaves your comment either facetious or blind to the the relevance of the memos.

womanmarine, I know that the AG HAS NOT been assigned the economy, the financial sector, or other concerns you attributed as making Obama’s plate too full to deal with this.

In the absence of a hostile takeover of our government by the Mexican drug cartels, I should venture to say, the AG’s plate has room enough for him to seek out and prosecute crime where ever and when ever it is uncovered.

Rhinehold is right, there is a lot of double standard evident in some of the comments here.

David:

No double standard, just a difference in how we see/interpret things. We all do it. I don’t presume to know what direction the AG has been given or is inclined to take, nor what he does have on his plate. I also don’t believe that the few things I mentioned are all Obama has on his plate. I can’t read their minds and I know full well that what gets out to the public is probably the tip of the iceberg. That’s all I’m saying.

Christine:

The sarcasm in your post is atrocious. Doesn’t help making any kind of point. It’s a petty comparison of cherry-picked second hand information. Don’t believe everything you hear and only half of what you see.

womanmarine, on Jan. 16, Eric Holder, our AG, said waterboarding is torture, and torture is illegal. He also said in his confirmation hearing:

“If you look at the history of the use of that technique,” Holder replied, “we prosecuted our own soldiers for using it in Vietnam. … Waterboarding is torture.” … “No one is above the law,” Holder said.

Seems clear to me from his own words, that it is his desire to investigate and prosecute, at the very least, those in the Bush administration who issued illegal authorization orders to torture. The absence of such action can only be attributed to Holder’s boss, Obama, if Holder hasn’t done a 180 on his own words to get confirmed before the Senate.

David:

I’m really not arguing with you. I just have a more wait-and-see attitude. Frankly, if I have to make a choice, I want the economy fixed. Bush the Christian will have to live with his own conscience, as will those who support him.

David good post. I am not in favor of going after the CIA and others who did the dirty work. I believe those that wrote the documents that all of a sudden made torture “legal” knew at the time it was wrong and need to pay the price for their criminal actions.

Instead GWB made a federal judge out of Bybee the former assisstant AG . It is my understanding that unless he is impeached he can remain a federal judge as long as he wants. Yoo and Bradbury didn’t receive such a deal from GWB so Bybee must be the main culprit in this shameful episode of American history. All 3 are being investigated by Congress but with Obama willing to forgive and forget I don’t see much happening as far as prosecution of these guys. Obama has this one wrong. Waterboarding was torture in WWII and it is wrong now.
Bybee should be impeached or resign from the bench for his role in providing an out for the CIA on this issue. Yoo and Bradbury should be stripped of their ability to practice law as they to knew what they were doing was wrong.

This is two strikes in my book for Obama and his administration. His belief that the aristocracy can commit criminal acts without fear of prosecution does not serve us well as a nation. I am deeply disappointed in his position on this issue.

David & Womanmarine

MOST of the “torture” is stuff like that. The caterpillars and the panties are just the funniest.

I know that a couple guys were kept awake for a couple days. I drove down to Florida when I was in college. I should never have done it, but I stayed awake for about two days.

How many people were waterboarded? And what did they tell us? Yes, waterboarding is very bad, but compared to saving hundreds of lives, I think the “inhumanity” is worth it.

Sorry for my outlook, but I suspect many people will come around to something closer to my point of view now that we know what really was done - how little really was done.

In the Middle East there are thousands of prisons much worse than Guantanamo. I know - we are better than they are and we are held to a much higher standard. But maybe the standard of allowing our people to be killed by terrorists is a bit too far.

As for the argument that now the bad guys will feel free to do nasty things to Americans - they already do.

We have maintained a perfect head to body ratio. The prisoners eat well. They get books to read and have games like ping pong to play. On the other hand, they killed thousands of Americans before we did anything to anybody. We didn’t even know we were at war with these guys until the first jet hit a tall building in a peaceful city. The bad guys also cut off heads and kill w/o remorse. I am sure that a U.S. soldier captured by Al Qaeda could only wish to be treated as well as we treat them.

I bet most of our Marines could resist the caterpiller test and they probably have seen women’s panties before. We all know that the terrorists would not stop with that.

Rhinehold:

So was the fact that when counted as the State court direct, the election would still have gone for Bush. It is no longer ‘conjecture’ and hasn’t been for 8 years.

Well, certainly if that’s the set of facts you pre choose to insure your outcome. Convenient.

Yes, but recent technology has proven out the fact that there was only one shooter, named Oswald. There is no longer any ‘conjecture’ surrounding this fact except by people who want there to be more to it.

Oh, I forgot about the way back machine that allowed non-existant facts to be created from 1963. The investigation was incomplete. It remains incomplete. I’m satisfied, but many aren’t.

No, it isn’t.

Yes, it is. Nyaah, Nyaah, Nyaah!

Yes, they are.

No, they aren’t. Gee, this is fun!

the Republican party did exploit the Florida election. Those are the only pertinent facts.

Kennedy is still dead and Bush still was a horrible president,…the Republican…Those are..

At least, when you rearrange my statements, you might acknowledge that, rather than use that to distort my statements for a convenient argument.
You also might recall voter purge lists and the Secretary of States misconduct, though I can see why no one wants to remember her. Brrrr!

Unlike Coleman/Franken recount, Gore never, ever, had a lead. And recounting the ballots later showed us that he would not have gotten it except in one very specific instance which was not asked for and would never have occurred.

That depends on whose recount you counted.

I didn’t vote for Bush, nor did I particularly like him as a president, but at least I can understand what is factual and what is fantasy.

Did you even read my comment? I guess when you distorted my comment, it magically disappeared from your thoughts

Rhinehold,

these the same people who wanted Bush impeached just a few short months ago? I can’t hardly recognize them anymore…

Some of us are pragmatists. At times I avered for his impeachment, (thanks for finding that old polemic of mine) but I think the balance of my comments were that it is was a waste of time and energy, as it wasn’t likely to happen. It would have been nice if Bush had been removed from office, except of course, for the inconvenient truth that for most of the time, the second and third choices would have been worse.

Idealism is wonderful for many. It gives them moral high ground. I guess you might say it lets them walk above the grass. There are those of us, like Obama, who are busy down among the blades, and who don’t have time to worry that much about past issues and demons. There are plenty of new ones coming up. I’m busy living, let the dead sort out their own demons.

Christine, you’ve obviously elected to cherry pick the words out of the statements made re: tactics used that qualified as torture.
One of your favorites seems to be that a bug was turned loose in a cell with a prisoner. Read this article for the correct information.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/6377944.html

President Obama will have trouble with pirates. Sooner or later we will have to do more to stop them. The world will leave that mostly to us. After we solve the problem, the grateful world will nit-pick how we did it. I am sure there will have been problems with the pirates’ food and there are lots of bugs in that region - huge caterpillars, and we know how that strikes terror into some people.

Christine,

Hilarious!! We’ll all laugh when you become a victim of torture. It’ll be a riot.

Jane

It is even funnier than I thought. ““If you do so … you must inform him that the insects will not have a sting that would produce death or severe pain,” said a 2002 memo sent to the CIA’s acting general counsel. A footnote clarified that the CIA ultimately did not carry out the insect interrogation plan.”

It is like Austin Powers, when Dr. Evil cannot get the EPA to approve sharks with lasers on their heads, so he has to settle for sea bass.

It is just too funny. Maybe Michael Moore can make a movie, “The Revenge of the Caterpillar” or “The Bug in the Box.”

THIS is what we were talking about these last four years?

yep, and still are it seems!

I’m still waiting for the report that scores the successes of extreme interrogation. So far as I have been able to ascertain, no prisoner gave even a tad bit of usable information under torture (or whatever Christine calls it), and some information gleaned actually led us down the wrong path. The memos are interesting, but the report card should really be fun.

Christine, if a person has a phobia, any action that intensifies that phobia is torture. Some of the prisoners were held for several hours in boxes the size of coffins…can you imagine what that would be like if you were claustrophobic?

But the most damning of all is that some of those who where interrogated in the extreme, were guilty of only being in the wrong place at the right time.

I would always hope America to be above such low action…

Christine
“. We didn’t even know we were at war with these guys until the first jet hit a tall building in a peaceful city.”

Yes we did. The first bombing of the WTC happened under Clinton. The perpetrators were imprisoned. Bush was presented with a detailed intell report saying that Bin Laden planned to use planes to attack buildings. He chose not to read it,let alone react to it, and fired Clinton’s terrorism advisor. I can’t believe Reps gave Bush a pass on this. The CIC was asleep at the switch.

All
Although I abhor torture, aren’t we getting hypocritical. The US has been involved with torture for a long time. In Vietnam torture was common place. Often we did it by proxy,using soldiers of puppet regimes to torture(source,Life Magezine). We aided the Shah and his Savak that used torture all the time to control Iran.
Then there was The School of the Americas, a CIA run institution to instruct Latin American dictators to,among other things, torture people without killing them.
Come on now. We have blood up to our elbows and the rest of the world knows this.

RH
Voter suppression. Overseas, mostly military ballots, being accepted after the election,rigged ballots, bizarre court rulings. Best you can say is Bush stole it fair and square. History will sort it out.

Rodney Brown
The Ford pardon of Nixon matters because detterence matters. Had Ford waited until after the courts had determined guilt then,perhaps, a the pardon would not have had such an ill effect on the behavior of later presidents.

BillS

In the rest of the world, torture, as defined in these reports, has been routine and commonplace. I suppose we Americans can feel bad that we are not as exceptional as we think in this area, but “the rest of the world” with the possible exception of Scandinavia or the Netherlands, is very hypocritcal if they are “shocked”.

The slander against the U.S. is that “torture” is a common procedure. When you see it detailed in these memos, you understand that even with the broad definition, it is not.

And many here may pretend outrage, but I will say plainly that if I can get a terrorist to tell us when or where the next attack is planned or how to break up the network, I am willing to put a caterpiller on him and worse.

Torture to save lives is certainly an ethical dilema, but don’t pretend that it is resolved. Or that the moral position is never to engage in torture under any circumstances. The hardest choices involve doing the right thing when it seems wrong.

Remember that the point of torture is intelligence gathering, not confession or punishment. We can argue whether those methods produce results. There are other more effective methods in most cases, which is a reason harsh interegations were so rarely used at Guantanmo. But the waterboarding provided information that led to the capture of KAL and information from KAL helped breakdown the AQ network and save lives. I won’t trade hundreds of lives for the feeling of moral superiority.

Beyond all that, I think it is very instructive to recall that for many prisoners just being returned to their home country is worse than staying at Guantanamo. In other words, an average day in a Chinese, Iranian or Syrian prison is worse than a year at Guantanamo. That is something else the world knows.

Christine said: “The slander against the U.S. is that “torture” is a common procedure. When you see it detailed in these memos, you understand that even with the broad definition, it is not.”

I think, Christine, the point of this whole issue is that the U.S. has ridden a high horse in condemning torture for decades by other governments, and even tried and convicted other government leaders for torture and crimes against humanity.

GW Bush knocked the U.S. off its high horse. Obama is trying to put the U.S. back on that horse. Though, it is difficult to see how he can even get a foot in the stirrup if he is unwilling to prosecute crimes of torture by people within the U.S. government.

As someone else here suggested, the least he could do is investigate, prosecute if the evidence warrants, and pardon those in the CIA who were just taking orders from the CIC.

But, as it stands, we have prosecuted military soldiers for torture in Abu Ghraib, but the POTUS so far, appears unwilling to touch the CIA, as if the CIA had some leverage over the President. This is not an appearance ANY president should foster for public view. The appearance smacks of Manchurian Candidate power, which the American people will not stand for.

Rodney Brown
The Ford pardon of Nixon matters because detterence matters. Had Ford waited until after the courts had determined guilt then,perhaps, a the pardon would not have had such an ill effect on the behavior of later presidents.”” A lot of could and should and would there bills, i think your making a assumption we don’t know how the outcome would have been if it went before the congress I’m sure it would have passed there but the senate requires a 2/3 super majority as we seen with Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson then it gets messy it could have been many years and with a nasty war winding down and a oil crisis and public sentiment at a all time low!.

“Jack Goldsmith, who succeeded Jay Bybee – the author of many of these memos – at the Office of Legal Counsel, has since declared that they had “no foundation” in any source of law and rested on “one-sided legal arguments”. Their purpose, he said, was to provide the CIA with a “golden shield” against criminal prosecution of agents. After all, the US prosecuted waterboarding as torture when the Japanese used it against American troops during Second World War.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6116281.ece

The issue for me is the fact that the torture memos had no basis in law and yet we continue to use them as fact because Obama has decided to not follow through with prosecution.

“In deciding to publish the documents on Thursday, however, President Obama accepted that it would be wrong to remove that legal cover protecting interrogators. He said that now the programme had ended it was time to move beyond “a dark and painful chapter in our history”.”

Remember Christine if it is legal to torture it will only be a matter of time until torture will be legal for the government to use on American citizens and the types of torture will be expanded as needed.

http://www.americanpresidents.org/survey/historians/ Wow some changes there look at kennedy go way up and Jefferson went down .

Johnson no.10 no way.

Pretty says it all about America’s failing educational system, doesn’t it?

DRR,
One thing that might be stopping, or I think delaying Obama investigating is he wants the economy to be better and then investigate fearing that by going after some of these people could lead more “crazy right-wing nut cases” to go out killing more people, or start a civil war. As silly as I would think that would be myself. The more I see far right republicans talking, the more I see it coming closer to that.

This probably does not apply to Obama but if I saw a cop pursuing a theft suspect and then he got a call to respond to a shoot out. I hope he would give up the chase with the theft, and go chase down the shooter.

David

I don’t think we can stay on that high horse, as defined today. We can probably give up waterboarding, but you know that the definition of torture will be elastic. Any type of detention is unpleasant. Is putting a terrorist in solitary confinement torture? Can you take away books? Television? Computers? What about the quality of the food? Can you yell at him when he lies?

The caterpillar caper that I think is so funny is called torture. That means you can include almost anything.

J2t2

I am sure the DEFINITIONS of torture will expand.

Think about the facts in evidence. We fight a war with nasty terrorists. Yet we still require a legal opinion about putting a caterpillar in with one of them. We sometimes slap a guy with an open hand. We play loud music. It really doesn’t rise to a high level of odious behavior.

I will risk it, j2t2. If I ever plan an attack on civilians, they should use torture to prevent it. They can even put a tick down my shirt.

I am not afraid of caterpillars, but I don’t like ticks. We know that the government cannot get the sharks with lasers on their heads.

Re prosecuting Japanese etc - we won.

And you might recall how we handled saboteurs and spies during WWII. I guess the key to success against terrorists is not to take them into custody at all.

Remember too that the worst thing we can do to many of the terror suspects is just return them to their native lands. In most of the Middle East, I guess they have really big caterpillars.

I’ll pretend that water boarding is not REALLY torture for a minute…Khalid Sheikh Mohammed suffered it one hundred and eighty three times (183) in one (1) month. Assuming the best possible image of a man being tied head down on an incline board, while water is poured into his face, and assuming that it happens once is not torture, would it be possible to do that to him ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-THREE times in ONE MONTH without it being called that awful name?

Another prisoner had it done to him eighty three times in a month. What would it take to call the procedure ‘commonplace’?

And, I maintain that an even more important score will be ‘how much useful information came of those two hundred and sixty-six non-torture procedures’…

Was the torture John McCain suffered at the the Hanoi Hilton much more harsh than what Mohammed suffered at the hands of our own Guantanamo administrators?

Marysdude

I cannot work up too much sympathy for the guy who planned the 9/11 attacks. He held out for two minutes, which I hear is a long time. After that he provided lots of useful information.

I also cannot find reference to the 183 times in anything but leftist blogs and they all use suspiciously similar language.

This is an real request, not an attempt to put you on defensive. Do you have a reference NOT from an opinion piece or blog so that I can assess it? My search turns up blogs that reference each other.

BTW - The difference with John McCain is that he was tortured for no reason and for a lot more than two minutes. He had no information that the NV could use and yet they continued to maim and torture him for five years. And he was permanently harmed. He still cannot raise his arms over his head.

Maybe you would not stoop to “torture” to save lives. That is your ethical decision. We don’t agree on that. But we do agree that torture should never be used as punishment or for any reason other than the need to get information that could save innocent lives.

Christine you mention several small items, especially caterpillars, numerous times that up until the past few days I have not heard anyone complain about. You seem to have neglected to mention waterboarding which has been the main source of criticism the past few years. You make light of this situation with your “it is not fascism when we do it” attitude IMHO. If we allow waterboarding today how far are we away from beheading those we pick up on whatever charges, if any, tomorrow?

Yes we won the war against the Japanese but those that waterboarded our troops were tried and convicted of torture then. Our troops did not legally use waterboarding then as they considered it to be torture. If it was torture then, by our own definition and standards, what has changed that all of a sudden it is not torture? Because we want to really isn’t a good answer, neither is because they do it IMHO. This type of fear and panic does not serve us well. It does not serve our cause nor does it gain us anything with those whom we could influence to our benefit. The bad guys torture, Christine, the guys like Saddam Hussein.

Christine, you miss McCain’s point entirely. We should not treat others as we would not want them to treat us. If we do, we have no moral, or legal basis, upon which to complain, make demands, or prosecute others who may employ torture upon our own captured. By torturing others in contradiction to international treaty, we virtually nullify those treaties, and our use of them in cases where our own are threatened with torture, or are tortured.

Kudos, that is another plausible explanation for the absence of action so far. We shall see how it unfolds, as the economy improves in 2010.

David

McCain is a great man who personal experience most of us cannot begin to imagine.

But if we are talking about the use and abuse of torture, we can say with certainty that if others employed it the the extent and for the purposes we did after 9/11, it would not be a serious issue worldwide.

If we could guarantee that others would treat us as we treat them, Americans would be much safer. AQ would never have murdered Daniel Perle or Nick Berg or…

You can logically argue that we should not torture because we are better than our adversaries. That is true, although we sometimes dispute the practical implications, but the argument that it will make the bad guys do worse just doesn’t fit experience. They already take great pride in their torturing and beheadings. They use it as propaganda. They torture and behead children to punish parents. They stone women and hang homosexuals. What are we going to push them into doing that they do not already do?

I repeat that one of the things many in Guantanamo fear more than staying there is to be sent back home. What does that tell you about those places? AND a major threat against any prisoner is to send him back to his native land, where much worse than Guantanamo is indeed routine.

We stopped using waterboarding years ago. We are not using torture now. What I worry about is elastic definitions.

You know that I don’t think we can deal with pirates because if we capture them we cannot really try them in the U.S. system and sending them anywhere else would be torture. That is how far this debate is taking us.

Blame Bush if you like, but I am 99% certain that by the time President Obama is leaving office, he will have “condoned” torture in the eyes of activists. NOT because he will have done it, but because no matter what happens the accusations will be out there.

I don’t think McCain was maimed, except psychologically, by the NVA. He may not have received proper treatment or timely medical attention, but that’s a far cry from being maimed by his tormentors. I believe he capitulated, and after that received no more harm. I did not bring up McCain to belittle his suffering, but to point out that his was no worse than some we have carried out.

Here’s the thing:

Assuming we are attacked again by terrorists, the guilty parties flee to a country that we have accused of human rights abuses, including torture. Assume we then ask for the turn-over of those guilty parties, and we are refused on the grounds that we abuse human rights and torture prisoners…where do we then stand in the scheme of things? Are we to declare war on every nation who thinks we torture prisoners, when in actual fact we DO torture prisoners?

Where is our moral high-ground when we show no morals? Where is our right to complain when we are guilty of the same crimes? Is it so hard to understand that our doing wrong, as a nation, takes almost all leverage, except military, that we might need in future?

We are not alone in the cosmos…we are a village, and ‘it takes a village’…

Marysdude

He was maimed. He can no longer comb his own hair (such as he has left) because his shoulders were dislocated so often. I would call that maimed. You can call it what you want, but they created harm that still significantly affects his physical activities forty years later.

Beyond that, there is no indication that the NV were seeking information. They were just trying to break him and they succeeded. And when McCain came home, he looked like a corpse. They had so starved, beaten and mistreated him. The boys at Gitmo gain weight. They have access to books. It is not the same thing at all. Again, you can call it what you like. If you think it is similar, that is okay with me. I just wouldn’t want you as an advisor on health issues.

We have never declared war on anybody because we thought they tortured prisoners. I suppose you can argue that we fought the Barbary pirates because they were enslaving Americans and it was hyocritical because we had slaves at the time.

Maybe you are a strict Christian. I am not but I like the story about Jesus and not throwing the first stone. That need to be morally pure before you can judge others is evidently the basis of your feelings on this. As much as I like the story, I don’t think we can operate on that, “w/o sin throwing the first stone” thing.

Compared to others in similar situations, we act in a good moral way, not perfectly.

I would also point out that the very fact that we feel free to debate these things, and have felt free even years ago, indicates the fundamental freedom we enjoy. You would not have gotten very far public questioning Saddam, “Uncle Ho”, Fidel or Hugo. If you so enjoy finding fault with America, we can say that we are freer now than in the past, even her. Woodrow Wilson shut down opposition much quicker during WWI, for example.

Not being a religous person myself, I am willing to toss that stone at dangerous terrorists BEFORE I have made myself perfect. Maybe I will get punished in the next life.

well dude, Christine’s arguments are getting more ludicrous all the time, and comments idicate torture is okie-dokie because McCain was subjected to atrocities long ago and far away. Oh ya…..the creepy-crawlers are okay, too, therefore stalemate reached.

Christine, fascinating this cognitive dissonance intrinsic in your comments, hero worshiping McCain while rebuking his wisdom from experience regarding torture.

Personally, holding such oppositions in my brain at one time would give me an intellectual headache, to be sure.

i think your problem is that you are defining torture down. you compare a man who was physically broken and kept in horrible conditions to ones who were potentially threatened with caterpillars, kept awake for a couple of days.

You also miss the points involved. In the case of the terror suspects, we were looking for proactive information to prevent further attacks. The men involved were decision-makers, not individual soldiers. The information gathered prevented innocent deaths.

This is the problem you face. You want to say that we should not torture and it doesn’t work anyway. The second part of your statement is dubious. An honest statement would be that you are willing to risk the consequences of not doing harsh interrogations. Just be careful how you define things.

Waterboarding was discontinued in 2003. The head of the CIA during the “torture” phase was a Clinton appointed Democrat. Most of the CIA officials are career civil servants. Many are probably Democrats. Now before you get all indignant, I am not blaming Democrats. I am not blaming anybody. I think they did what they thought they needed to do to keep us safe in a very turbulent time. And it worked

Intelligence consists largely of the ability to make reasonable distinctions. I think that is what many are failing to do. I expect most will come around after the Bush hatred fades and they notice that Obama has to do some of the same sorts of things.

We have an interesting but dangerous dilemma. We demand that our services keep us safe and anticipate threats. Then we second guess them and take away their power to carry out the task.

Think about the CIA official who carried out some of these interrogations. They relied on a policy approved by Justice Department with a bipartisan consensus. It was briefed to congressional leaders. Nancy Pelosi reportedly asked if the techniques were effective enough. The public demanded even more. A couple years later, some people feel bad about their earlier zeal. Since we prevented subsequent attacks, they feel the world is now as safe as they thought it was in on September 10, 2001.

Various stripes of liberals can wallow in their self-deception of moral superiority, criticizing decisions they never had to make and becoming outraged about techniques that were discontinued six years ago. Perhaps they really are such perfect people in your own lives, never prone to unreasonable anger, always doing the right thing for others etc. I suspect not. My observation is that sanctimonious people, who want to grab the moral high ground in the abstract, usually do so because they are so unfamiliar with that territory in their own practical lives.

I remember a story told by a liberal congressman. He said that if he was in a car accident, he hopes the next person passing is a conservative. A liberal would complain about the state of the roads, car safety etc, but wouldn’t stop to help. The conservative would. In other words, the liberal would advocate the right thing; the conservative would do it.

That is what we have here. I don’t want to torture anybody. I don’t even like to make people uncomfortable. The fact that we have to enforce law with force makes me feel bad. But I recognize the world as it is and I am willing to recognize the costs of both action and non-action.

You are willing to trade innocent lives for a feeling of moral superiority. I don’t think much of that idea.

Jane

Okie dokie might be a cute phrase where you come from, but you might reconsider using it in serious arguments.

I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was all Clinton’s fault that we torture…if I’d known that I’d never have said anything against it. If Clinton was the cause, torture must be a moral and humane way to glean bad information…mea culpa, mea culpa!

Christine, we entered into international agreements condemning torture for a good and pragmatic reason, and because condemning torture is a moral act. You say the good and pragmatic reason no longer exists and that torture is a moral option…if we can make up enough justification for it…I guess we’ll always disagree on this matter. But, in the course of history, I hope I’m never placed as a prisoner in your hands, and if I am, you don’t have to torture me…I’ll tell you everything I know…over a cup of good coffee…

PS:

I’ve been an atheist for nigh-on sixty years…morality, compassion and common sense are not necessarily Christian virtues…

Christine,

Reuters…I’m not sure if this bunch is a left-wing rag or not, but Reuters is where the original report came from I believe…266 times on two people in thirty days…hmmm…both moral, AND non-torture?

Still more interesting will be the report of the effectiveness of those Christine dubbed moral and non-torturous methods of interrogation…Mohammed sang like a canary, but so would I under the same methods…the words he uttered are far more important than how much he said. Didn’t McCain say he gave the names of pro football players during his interrogation?

Marysdude

It sounds bad. Maybe that is why they discontinued it six years ago.

Thanks for the reference.

A secretive President might have discontinued it six years ago…or…who knows? Lying has never been his short suit. He may have still been doing it until the day he left office, if not in Guantanamo, then in one of his secret hidy-holes. Cheney/Bush is not a very nice man…and I believe he is sadistic in the extreme. He would have made a fine inquisitor. Perhaps he was just born at the wrong time in the wrong place?

Marysdude

Presumably President Obama would know about this now. The Bush blaming time is finished. He is not longer in office Maybe he should not have done some things in 2002. Maybe Nancy Pelosi & John Kerry should have complained when they was informed back in 2002. It wasn’t a secret to Congress and they are still in office.

There have been immoral and stupid people in public office for a long time, so I don’t normally try to defend those who are immoral or stupid on either side of the aisle. Clinton was culpable in so readily signing GLB, for that he should fall off his high horse. Those Democrats who signed off on the so-called Patriot Act should by boiled in oil, but, that being said…Presidents set the tone while they are in office…this current President is setting a better tone than the last one (or the one before him), and that makes me glad, once again, to be American. In my almost seventy years there have been many times when that pride has been shaken. Quite frankly there have been only a few times when the pride has shone through…this is becoming one of those latter times.

When we help put thugs and criminals in charge of other nations, when we start wars to appease rubber barons or oil barons, when we resort to the bestiality of torture, when we throw out Habeas Corpus, when we invade one country on a pretext of protecting its citizens while leaving another leader in charge elsewhere who is even more despotic…well, you get the picture.

Some on here have accused me of being childish (hmmm), I prefer ‘naive’, but so-be-it. Some on here have accused me of riding a high-horse of moral superiority, I assume because I speak of honesty and honor as though they have meaning in the scheme of things. I plead guilty on both counts…I BELIEVE that good is better than bad. I BELIEVE that honor is better than dishonor. And, I BELIEVE this nation can be a good and honorable nation. But, it cannot and will not happen as long as the tone set in the oval office invites bad and dishonorable action and discourse.

I will childishly (naively?) submit that Cheney/Bush set a bad and dishonorable tone…

I was once a Republican…grew up in a Republican household, and married a Republican. I left the party because I could no longer stomach the Republican valueless program. I am now, proudly, a Democrat, but that does not mean all things the party does I approve of, and it does not mean that every Democrat is a good and honorable person. It does mean that I am not as disappointed in the Democratic party as I was in the Republican party. Ronald Reagan and Cheney/Bush just caused the chasm to widen.