Morning Newsdome
April 21, 2009 at 10:34 am by TL Pixley in News
>> Investigations into misuse of funds from the $700 billion corporate bailout are underway.
>> Stripping is a dangerous job but somebody’s got to do it. Kind of like Alaskan crab fishing.
>> As a species, we are witch-hunters. And this is why.
>> Meghan McCain is like totally smart and she has a tattoo and like gay friends and stuff.
>> Miss Coachella? So did we. But we can all live vicariously through these photos!
>> MISSING THE POINT: Cheney wants everyone to know that torture works. So why not use it all the time? Like on politicians who lie about government cover-ups and CEOs who try to hide money laundering? The possibilities are endless.
(Photo by Joeff Davis)
April 21st, 2009 at 12:14 pm
There is a difference between lying and murdering innocent Americans by the thousands.
Cheney isn’t the one missing the point.
April 21st, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Dale — just to clarify — I’m pretty sure the guys who murdered the thousands of innocents on 9/11 didn’t survive the plane crashes and so aren’t the ones being tortured.
Waut…hold on..yep, I just Googled it — they died in the crashes.
What’s that? Torture the ones who may possibly have some info on those connected to planning a hypothetical future attack?
Great idea! Then history will regard our country with the same admiration afforded to the Spanish Inquisition!
You sly dog, you da man wid da plan.
April 21st, 2009 at 1:28 pm
In your Googling did you learn that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, one of the waterboardees, was a planner of 9/11?
Seem reasonable that he may know abut more plans or have info on how to catch Osama?
The Spanish Inquisition tortured their own citizens for heresy and treason. Yeah, thats the same thing….
Try being smart instead of a smart ass and you will go much further in life.
April 21st, 2009 at 1:30 pm
Did Islamist terrorist organizations stop planning to attack us on 9/12?
April 21st, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Did the guys who flew the planes plan the attack? No.
By your rationale, suicide bombers are a dead end and no one should pursue their handlers and enablers.
April 21st, 2009 at 3:41 pm
i think the question needs to be – did waterboarding sheik mohammed 180+ times, or whatever it was, WORK?
i haven’t heard any evidence that it has.
it almost certainly HAS lower our status in the world, given motivation to the enemy, and endanger our soldiers in the field.
but u know, we’re mad, so we should be allowed to do whatever the fuck we want regardless of the consequences, right?
April 21st, 2009 at 3:45 pm
President Bush said that “torture is never acceptable,” and I agree.
I think that when the concern for safety is so strong that it allows us to distort our moral compass to the point where torture of people declared ‘combatants’ is OK, there begins to be a hollow ring to the rights guaranteed to us as US citizens to be free of cruel or unusual punishment.
In the end we’ve possibly gained a greater guarantee of safety from attacks, but we’ve lost our focus on the importance of human rights.
“For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
Amen to that.
April 21st, 2009 at 4:14 pm
@wesleywhatwhat – according to Robert Gates, Dick Cheney and other people who would actually know, it worked. There have been LOTS of people captured before they did anything and we haven’t been hit again.
Of course, both of those sources are tainted in the eyes of every person who calls what we did “torture”.
April 21st, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Darin – I also agree with President Bush. He, I and apparently Obama, don’t agree with you that this was “torture”.
April 21st, 2009 at 4:23 pm
?
“Mr Obama said he had had no choice but to release the Bush administration’s legal justification for interrogation techniques, which he considers to be torture – and has banned.”
April 21st, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Dale,
There is no denying whether this is torture. Hiding behind the small print does not make it not torture. The real question is this: Do you care if we torture possible terrorists? Some people do not. The ends justify the means. Personally i do not agree with it.
April 21st, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Darin – Obama made a political statement, not a legal one. If he truly thought it to be torture, he would prosecute. Unless he is a duplicitous tool, like other politicians.
Are you feeling anger, disappointment or some other negative emotion toward the President for whom you likely voted?
April 21st, 2009 at 5:37 pm
Edgewood Adam – There is plenty of room for me to say this is nto torture. The “small print” to which you refer are the international agreements to which we are a signatory party snd have been thrown at me in other threads on this subject lately.
I am speaking specifically of the Geneva Accords and the Convention Against Torture.
April 21st, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Darin – you post that Bush said torture is never acceptable and then say that what we did was torture because Obama said exactly the same thing.
Interesting logic.
Obama also was against the “illegal” wiretaps of the Bush administration and the hiding of evidence regarding sources and methods from the non-combatant detainees.
Didn’t he and Holder argue for even broader authority last week? Why, yes, he certainly did.
My point is, his words and actions are not much to hang your argument on.
April 21st, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Edgewood Adam – to answer your direct question regarding torturing terrorists. If the info will save lives and reasonably informed people deem the terrorist to have that info? Yes, “torture” them.
By “torture” I mean the methods we have used so far. I don’t condone breaking their bones, branding them with hot irons, cutting off peoples heads in front of them… You know, real torture, not “torture” of putting bugs in a box or getting a woman too close to you.
The kind our enemies use and we don’t.
April 21st, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Oops, Obama changed his mind. He announced today an open season for the people who drew up the guidelines for interrogation. Holder can investigate and prosecute them, thus criminalizing a policy dispute.
I wonder if they will investigate Pelosi and Rockefeller for their approval of the policies?
April 21st, 2009 at 9:42 pm
You’re a comment posting machine, Dale. I’m no match. I’ll respond to a couple of things, though:
RE: “you post that Bush said torture is never acceptable and then say that what we did was torture because Obama said exactly the same thing” — I don’t follow this statement. Let me be clear: Bush said torture is inacceptable and I agree. He said that waterboarding is not torture and I strongly disagree. I think Bush’s defense of waterboarding is morally wrong, but I can at least agree with his general statement that torture is inacceptable.
RE: “I also agree with President Bush. He, I and apparently Obama, don’t agree with you that this was “torture”” — I may be misunderstanding something you’re saying. I hope you aren’t claiming that Obama doesn’t think waterboarding is torture, because he has clearly stated otherwise. In an interview with George Stephanopoulos in January, he said “from my view waterboarding is torture.”
April 22nd, 2009 at 9:44 am
Then why did Obama say he would not prosecute for waterboarding?
Probably because “his view” is a political opinon and not the law.
Of course, yesterday he reversed his position and is going to permit Holder to investigate the Bush officials for their legal opinions on interrogation.
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:44 pm
wesleywhatwhat said “i think the question needs to be – did waterboarding sheik mohammed 180+ times, or whatever it was, WORK?
i haven’t heard any evidence that it has.”
If you don’t like my previous two sources, how about on of Obama’s boys?
Admiral Dennis Blair, Director of National Intelligence, says it helped.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/5202356/Obama-intelligence-official-says-interrogation-provided-high-value-information.html