It's only been a week, and things are already completely different under an Obama Administration.
Love means only having to say you're sorry
Barack Obama, promising the most ethical government in the history of the United States, has offered his full support for Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy Geithner, saying he is confident the Senate will confirm him despite his "innocent mistake." Geithner claimed he wasn't aware that he had to pay self-employment taxes on self-employment income, a confusion not shared by 20 million other self-employed taxpayers who did not hold senior-level positions at the U.S. Treasury Department, the International Monetary Fund, and as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
According to the Associated Press, President Obama is confident the Senate will confirm Mr. Geithner despite his "innocent mistake." Obama said that only one man on this planet, Timothy Geithner, has the intelligence, experience, wisdom and integrity to lead the Treasury Department during a period of financial crisis, and must be confirmed.
However, according to AP reports, this is the same Timothy Geithner who was "flummoxed by TurboTax, a popular income tax preparation computer program used by millions of people. He neglected to closely read IMF yearly statements warning him of his personal liabilities for the Medicare and Social Security taxes in question, even though he signed the statements saying he understood that. After giving up on TurboTax, he hired a tax preparer, who, he claimed, also failed to catch the errors. Geithner also incorrectly claimed summer camp for his children as a dependent-care deduction. He paid the back taxes plus interest for the years 2003 and 2004 only after being audited by the IRS. But he did not pay taxes he owed for 2001 and 2002, even though he had made the same mistakes for those years – until last fall, shortly before he was nominated by Obama to be treasury secretary."
Those wishing to invoke the "Geithner Predicate" when discussing their own tax returns with the Obama Administration's IRS, please consult Eric Holder for a possible future presidential pardon. That is, if you have a big enough bank account, and well-endowed enough wife, to help argue your case successfully.
In an unrelated story, The Sealy Posturepedic company has introduced a new "mattress stuffer" line for people who want to hide their money (taxed or untaxed) under their beds, rather than let the world's smartest Treasury Secretary use their hard-earned dollars to help manage the nation's finances.
And the "Emily Latilla Award" goes to . . .
"In what ethics-in-government advocates described as a particularly far-reaching move, Mr. Obama barred officials of his administration from lobbying their former colleagues 'for as long as I am president.' He barred former lobbyists from working for agencies they had lobbied within the past two years and required them to recuse themselves from issues they had handled during that time."
However, "Mr. Obama's nominee for deputy secretary of defense, William Lynn, has been a lobbyist for the defense contractor Raytheon, and his nominee for deputy secretary of health and human services, William V. Corr, lobbied for stricter tobacco regulations as an official with the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. A senior White House official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, conceded the two nominees did not adhere to the new rules." To resolve the issue, Mr. Lynn would receive a formal "waiver," and Mr. Corr would promise not to do it again, thus ending the issue.
Confidence in government has therefore been restored under an Obama Administration. The rules are always the rules, except when they aren't. And there will be no exceptions, except when there are. I hope this clears up any confusion.
Meet the New Boss, same as the Old Boss
US airstrikes on suspected terrorist camps in Pakistan on January 24, 2009 killed at least 20 people. The strikes "follow the Bush military blueprint."
Women and Children First
Afghan President Hamid Karzai denounced a U.S. operation on January 25, 2009, he claimed killed more than a dozen civilians, including two women and three children. Karzai said the killing of innocent bystanders "is strengthening the terrorists."
Forgotten but not gone
President Obama has issued his first Executive Order on January 24, 2009 in the fight against international terrorism. The U.S. prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (GITMO), housing many of the world's most dangerous terrorists, will be closed down.
In reading the fine print of the Executive Order, however, the closing will not take place for another year or so, and no decision has been made on where to send these prisoners once GITMO is finally closed. The option of releasing the prisoners has been delayed by a related Executive Order shutting down all military tribunals currently underway to assess each individual detainee's guilt or innocence.
Thus, while maintaining that the US will once again put the rule of law at the forefront of its policies and actions, President Obama has shut down any ability for individual prisoners to have their day in court, closed a military prison facility at some future point while allowing it to remain in operation for the indefinite future, and has not determined what to do with the world's most dangerous terrorists who reside at that facility if and when it is ever closed.
Oh, and just for good measure, any captured terrorist will henceforth be interrogated according to the Army Field Manual, and not made to feel uncomfortable in any way at any time. Interrogators who do not say "please" or "thank you" when interviewing captured terrorists will be subject to Congressional Investigation, fines and imprisonment for violating the terms of civilized behavior, as will those who offer these detainees a Coke instead of the new Obama-logo Pepsi products during refreshment breaks.
Questions regarding what Mr. Obama intends to do, and when exactly he intends to translate his words into actions, should be directed to the author of the Executive Order Greg Craig, the new White House Council, who explained the terms to Obama during a televised press briefing so that Obama could immediately repeat Craig's words to the press which had already heard them.
Change has definitely come to Washington. Hope too — in that we all hope the next four years go by fast with limited domestic casualties.
And they used to say that the 43rd President of the United States was too dumb to walk and chew gum at the same time.
Phil
Obviously you are clinging, bitterly, to your outmoded concepts of Law. And you live in a binary world of “good” & “bad”, failing to see that we must be nuanced, which is why we elected the most intelligent people last November & why we will rid ourselves of F**king lowlifes like Blago and, you know, people like, er….
You need a break from the amateurish Republican Culture of Corruption era, which is over. We won!
Simply put, the Democrat adult Culture of Corruption Rule is that you’re not a tax cheat until an audit reveals that you might be a cheat if you didn’t pay up the amount you cheated the government out of, & then you pay up the amount you cheated the government out of, plus fines & penalties, if any, and then you’ve been absolved ab initio of being a cheat. And being audited means that one can never have been a cheat with respect to anything that mean-spirited, small-minded people like you would consider cheating if the statutory period of limitations (generally three years) governing such actions had not passed. So let’s move on; nothing to see.
Next, you’ll be telling us that Tim & Charlie have been “shredding my tax law”, plagiarizing that word, which applies solely to BushHitler’s inexcusable treatment of my Constitution.
And you have to pick on Tim’s poor children who were just enjoying themselves at sleep-away camp, for goodness sake. Have you no shame? Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?
And those much-needed lobbying rules you refer must not be used by an obstructionist like you to prevent qualified citizens from sacrificing their lives to serve our government. I mean, c’mon, Dick Cheney & Halliburton? You think that he wasn’t running the McChimpy Bush White House?
And you carp at our President’s making sure that he had everything right in the Gitmo restoration of my Constitution, which that War Criminal Bush, with Chaney his puppeteer, had shredded. I mean, at least he took the time to be sure that he mouthed the words of his Counsel correctly, which your fascist Chief Justice wouldn’t allow him to, leaving our poor President confused in the cold with the whole world watching. And now you want the details of our President’s unequivocal (do you understand the meaning of that word?) pronouncement of a definitive (do you comprehend the concept of definitive?)time concept, when those of us with any sense of decency are cheered at the beauty of the pronouncement & it’s meaning & it’s restoration of our shredded Constitution? Don’t you see that he is giving himself time to figure out how to honor this honorable commitment? Don’t you see the contrast with the simplistic cowboy approach of the previous Administration, which was stained ab initio, having taken office in a stolen election? Anyway, we’ve won.
Yours ’til the next attack, which we’ll declare not to be an attack because that kind of thinking is, um, you know, unhopeful.
Phil:
Re: “…if you have a big enough bank account…”
Reminded me of the following poem, “The Net of Justice”:
O, net of justice with mesh so fine,
No minnow escapes thy seep of twine;
O, net with such a lengthy train,,
No errant child escapes thy strain;
O, net with reach so long, so vast,
Ne’er tiniest soul escapes thy cast;
O, net with such a power pull,
Each haul of krill is over full;
O, wondrous net of mystery,
Why, only whales escape from thee!
As I read this essay I was reminded of Orwell’s other book which is becoming appropriate…Animal Farm. Remember the progression All Animals are Created Equal morphing to the final All Pigs are Created Equal. Seems appropriate that O the first has a little mud on his feet with his poorly selected cabinet. Guess that mud turns into a sty as our country is destroyed.
Inwood: I am suitably chasened!
Sedona: I think the size of Mrs. Rich’s breasts, rather than her bank account, may have had more to do with the Clinton decision. But as far as Obama is concerned, it is the money, and thus your citation is spot-on.
Mickey: Animal Farm, or the opening scene from Woody Allen’s “Bananas” — which is well worth watching if you haven’t seen it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qff098NCNDE&feature=related ["El Presidente"]
Phil, here is a site to help in keeping score on O the first’s promises. It seems to have a left slant so results may be skewed to paint O the magnificant in the best colors.
http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/?page=1
One can only hope that the GITMO residents will be sent to Congress to replace the denizens of that place. That would lead to an increase in integrity, efficiency, and intelligence.
P
From Victor Davis Hanson on NRO:
“Rather than the debate/’hope and change’ mode, [new President Obama]must simply begin the hard business of governance in which each decision creates as many enemies as friends, and choices are no longer perfect/awful morality tales of perpetual campaigning, but bad/worse dilemmas of executive responsibility.
Well, I posted a longer comment that still hasn’t shown up. So here’s the abbreviated version.
To Mickey’s point about Animal Farm, I think this is a closer fit —
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qff098NCNDE (Woody Allen’s “Bananas” El Presidente clip.
If you really want effective interrogations, you should be happy about the new developments, according to this guy. (But what does he know, he only got results.)
Raymond, if the article appeared in the Washington Post or the book was on Oprah’s list it must be true! I suspect strongly that the article and the Air Force Criminal Investigator are both questionable. But, now that my curiosity is piqued, I will do a little investigating via my veteran connections.
Question: If aggressive interrogation doesn’t work because those being waterboarded will say anything to make it stop, why did KSM tell the truth? The info we got from him actually stopped future attacks. So, if it was a “lie”, it had the coincidental benefit of being true according to Raymond’s logic.
But, what does KSM actually know about the effective use of waterboarding anyway?
By the way, to save everyone another endless round of debating whether “is” is, or perhaps’s “isn’t”, depending upon whether you chose to be an athe-isits or an agnost-isits for purposes of making that particular point, this whole supposed change in policy is a PR scam anyway.
“In a hearing on Capitol Hill Thursday, the man nominated to be the director of intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, said the government would look at revising the Army Field Manual on interrogation rules, which leaves open the possibility that different techniques can be added for use by intelligence officers and not be publicized.”
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/22/obama.interrogations/index.html
So, Obama will require interrogations to conform to the AFM, but the AFM will have certain classified “techniques” added to it to permit aggressive torture, er, I mean, interrogation, er, I mean full respect for a terrorist’s constitutional rights under an Obama administration.
And if anything goes wrong with the kinder, gentler Obama waterboarding (a nurse will be on hand to assure the terrorist that he’s not really going to be injured, we just want him to think he will so he’ll tell us where the dirty bombs are), it will of course all be Bush’s fault.
What I find missing in discussions about Obama is his overt profession of Christian faith: “…[Rev. Wright] introduced me to someone named Jesus Christ. I learned that my sins could be redeemed. I learned that those things I was too weak to accomplish myself, He would accomplish with me if I placed my trust in Him.”
Why is no one troubled about theocracy? Why is no one hooting about mixing politics and faith? Why is no one wondering if Obama’s religion is coloring his policy decisions?
Dr. Jackson, by now I feel only faint surprise that you didn’t really parse the article, or the oppositions to torture that have been raised before. :-<
It’s not that torture cannot ever work, just that it doesn’t work reliably. Other techniques work at least as well and don’t have the collateral disadvantages that torture does. As an analogy, you can build a solar-powered car, but you have to give up a lot of extras and you can’t count on it when the clouds gather. (I’ve asked before, but never gotten a solid answer – does history record any actual situation reminiscent of the plots of 24?)
Oh, and torture is against our American principles… but nobody cares about principles anymore, right? Sure, the Founding Fathers had gone through an actual war on American soil that they’d come close to losing, and still thought the Bill of Rights was a good idea, but they were just a bunch of old fuddy-duddies. Who cares what they thought?
Raymond: No one ever claimed that aggressive interogation techniques are the ONLY way to proceed. [Note to file: being "aggressive" does not automatically constitute "torture", which is the only word Rayond seems to know. We waterboard our soldiers to prepare them for capture, but we don't pull out their fingernails].
This whole issue is a scam, anyway, since the Obama administration has already signalled its intent to follow the AFM — once it is amended to include new secret “classified” interrogation techniques.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. It’s just that we can’t condemn the new boss for things the Left routinely condemned the old boss for doing.
>does history record any actual situation reminiscent of the plots of 24?)
Well, we’ve now reached a new level of sophistication in the arguments of the Left.
(a) If an act isn’t public knowledge (“recorded history”, it cannot have happened. And
(b) If real life doesn’t imitate a fictional TV program, then we must question whether ‘real life’ is real.
And finally, if Raymond tosses around the word “torture” to describe aggressive interrogation, then whatever takes place is indeed “torture”, and we must now justify “torture” in view of the principles of our slave holding Founding fathers who raped their female slaves and whipped their male field hands … wait a minute, is Raymond arguing for or against the proposition that “torture” is an unAmerican principle?
I guess it will all depend on the point he wants to make.
FYI to those who have written me off line: No, Raymond is not actually “Harry” from my Looney Liberal Chronicles, who has the same unique way of forming his socio-political observations.
Dr. Jackson, as to whether waterboarding is ‘torture’, I’m willing to trust the word of someone who’s been through it. (Read especially the latter half of the second page. Since you like to bring up KSM, point number 3 in that itemized list may surprise you.)
Raymond: You’re actually taking the word of my two brothers (US Air Force Academy graduates), and the thousands of other soldiers who have experienced waterboarding to prepare them for capture (but still have all their fingernails and heads un-sawed off — i.e. “torture”). I’m impressed!
I’m still looking for the proper TV show script to corroborate my other points, given your new requirements of evidence. Does it count if I refer to my own novels? Or, like Chris Hitchens, should I just define torture as something I personally feel is “torture” — like trying to make sense of convoluted logic?
Dr. Jackson – Considering how long ‘recorded history’ is, I’d think that absence of evidence would be at least preliminary evidence of absence. In any case, if there’s no record of any such situation, then it’s hard to use such things as an argument for torture, right?
I’m really unable to follow your logic on (b). I rather thought that my point was more like, ‘If real life doesn’t imitate a fictional TV program, then the solutions that apply in real life might not match the ones that apply in a fictional TV program.’ Perhaps your faith in the reality of life is weaker than mine, I can’t really tell.
(As to slavery… the Founding Fathers weren’t perfect, of course. They had some sadly misguided notions about who was ‘human’ and who wasn’t. Fortunately we’ve learned more about who’s actually human since then. The principles in the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution in general, apply to humans. That’s kind of the point of the 14th and 19th amendments, to clarify that.
Now, are you going to argue that terrorists aren’t human, or that the Founding Fathers were just plain wrong and should have put some exceptions into the principles that resulted in the Bill of Rights?)
Interesting discussion which could have been started over fraternity hazing circa 1960s. Why would I cite the fraternity hazing? Because it was worse than many, if not all, of the practices that everyone seems to have their panties in a bunch over. I guess we also must cancel our military training as well. It has been going on since at least the mid-60s when I left the service. We need a kinder gentler military too?
By the way our constitution was not established to cover all humans in the universe (note I included other planets just in case) rather it was directly aimed at our citizens and those legally in our country. So do terrorists have rights? Nope!
> Considering how long ‘recorded history’ is, I’d think that absence of evidence would be at least preliminary evidence of absence.
*** What an idiot. Remember the original point Raymond made was “does history record any actual situation reminiscent of the plots of 24?” The government maintains classified records on a plethora of things, particularly individual terrorist plots. Because Bush and Obama haven’t made the files public, they must not exist. What an idiot.
> ‘If real life doesn’t imitate a fictional TV program, then the solutions that apply in real life might not match the ones that apply in a fictional TV program.’ Perhaps your faith in the reality of life is weaker than mine, I can’t really tell.
*** What an idiot. Because Bush and Obama won’t declassify all information on terrorist plots, and Raymond defines this as “evidence of absence”, then aggressive interrogation techniques are completely uncalled for. What an idiot.
> Now, are you going to argue that terrorists aren’t human …”
*** What an Idiot. I wrote 60,000 words on terrorism and abortion http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2006/08/25/what-kind-of-car-would-jesus-drive-to-take-his-girlfriend-to-an-abortion-clinic/ that Raymond allegedly read and responded to. I knew he didn’t really read what I said when he pretended to review this. http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/07/13/the-true-nature-of-human-morality-a-response-to-the-critique-%e2%80%9cuniversal-morality-and-the-morality-of-the-universe%e2%80%9d/ and insisted on debating issues I never raised instead of citing points I actually made. Now he’s just admitted as much. What an idiot.
Oh, and before someone thinks I’m being too mean to Raymond for questioning his intelligence, let me again invoke “Jackson’s razor,” an eponymous adage which reads: “Never attribute to simple stupidity that which can be adequately explained by deliberate stupidity.”
Intelligent conversation is simply not possible with someone who maintains that how Christopher Hitchens “feels” should define “torture”, and who looks to TV programs to validate reality.
The only thing left is to have fun with the person pretending to debate.
Mickey: Until Christopher Hitchens tells us how he feels about life on other planets, or whether American Constitutional rights apply to extra-terrestrials, the issue is not settled in Raymond’s mind.
That is, unless you can reference a TV program that proves your point.
Well, I do understand Obama’s desire to “get off to a running start.” I respect the fact that he’s naming his cabinet so early.
However, there are many potential picks for Treasurer, etc. out there and ethics should not be compromised. I personally believe that taxes in the first place hang on the thinest thread of legitimacy, but it is highly questionable for a Treasury head nominee to “just not realize I was supposed to pay $30k+.” Please.
Far better for him to say, “I dispute the legitimacy of a citizen of the USA to pay tax in the first place.” Of course, I’m dreaming!!! We’ll never hear those words from anyone in the Treasury, they’ll continue to cheat on their taxes and take advantage of all the loopholes for the richest rich and divy up their hoard of citizen’s cash.
The lobbyist move is a good one – if it actually gets followed.
Obama is not necessarily where blame should go for failed operations in Afghanistan. However, if he, Clinton, and Gates keep Vietnam II up, it will be a long and messy haul. I should know, I have family members serving in Afghanistan whose contracts were just extended (of course, without their consent). During Clinton’s Senate confirmation hearing, she was given excellent advice from a Senator just returning from Afghanistan about how dangerous, dire, and a great money drain this war is. I hope for my family’s, and American’s sake, she heeds this, but I think she will not.
Gitmo closing is a good thing, a really good thing. It is high time the US has free trade with Cuba and re-establishes dealing with detainees in a measured and efficient way. Some of the facts on this blog regarding its closure are quite inaccurate or exaggerative. Prisoners are being evaluated individually and different outcomes await them, including trial in cases where’s there is enough evidence. Please and thank you are not required, a lack of waterboarding, for example, is. Gitmo housed children, as well as adults, and both were tortured. In some cases, for years, just for knowing/growing up in Al Quaida’s circles without any evidence against the actual prisoner ever doing wrong. Some of the cases have documented proof, such as photographs, that placed them miles away from where they were alleged to be doing whatever it was they were alleged to do. However, these photographs, etc., were typically not even allowed TO BE SEEN in the Gitmo “trials”. Anyone who thinks Gitmo was a good thing should do some homework on it. It is high time the US moved beyond witch-craft trials and into the 21st century.
The success of how Gitmo’s end is handled entirely depends on how prisoners are vetted, which remains to be seen.
>Please and thank you are not required …
I must have been misinformed! Thank you for the correction.
I’m pretty sure the Coke vs. Obama-Pepsi products during refreshment breaks is true, though.
Phil
RE Mickey:
The issue is not whether or not non-citizens have rights, but rather, who is it who gets to define who a terrorist is?
Once you start realizing that under HR 1955, one of so many examples, that anyone who has “political thought” outside of the mainstream now meets this expanded definition terrorist, I think we all would be wise to re-think who our enemies actually are.
And no, I’m not so much talking about McVeigh types, as say, human rights activists, non-violent protesters, you know, those pesky folks who DARE TO DISAGREE.
Furthermore, so many of the real terrorists, as in Afghanistan, were trained by and given weapons and money by… Guess who? Yes, that’s right, if you paid taxes in the ’70′s and the ’80′s you helped fund Al Quaida! You also helped put Saddam in power. So at what point do our friends become our enemies? What about those folks that helped establish them… high up in the gov’t… are they terrorists?
Basically, when you’ve got the gov’t making ever broader and gray-er definitions of who falls into this category, one day you’ll wake up and it’ll be you.
> when you’ve got the gov’t making ever broader and gray-er definitions …
Hey Mickey: Think anyone will notice that “the Government” now in charge of making those distinctions is the OBAMA ADMINISTRATION?
“In a hearing on Capitol Hill Thursday, the man nominated to be the director of intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, said the government would look at revising the Army Field Manual on interrogation rules, which leaves open the possibility that different techniques can be added for use by intelligence officers and not be publicized.”
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/22/obama.interrogations/index.html
PS: I’m still waiting for ultimate clarification on the whole Coke vs. Pepsi issue too.
Re: Coke and Pepsi
lol, I’ll take your word on this one. Doesn’t prodding prisoners to drink carbonated high fructose corn syrup also defy the Geneva Convention Standards? It should. ;)
How about
COKE: What the REST of the world drinks. Catchy!
Dr. Jackson – What exactly is your point? That there might exist secret records that justify the practice of torture? Are these like McCarthy’s list of communist infiltrators or Nixon’s secret plan to end the Vietnam war? What about the secret records of the alien crash at Roswell?
Sure, there might be such secret records, just like there might be a teapot in orbit between Earth and Mars. All I can conclude is that you are admitting that there is, in fact, no public record of such a situation… which is what I, y’know, asked.
Now, the fact that over roughly 4,000 years of recorded history, we don’t know of a case like that… does that say anything about the likelihood of such records existing?
And, should we assume such records do exist? If so, why?
I’m aware of your other screeds re: terrorism and humanity. You’re quite facile at asking rhetorical questions, but seem rather clumsy at recognizing them when they’re asked of you. Oh, well; in a triumph of self-reference, you can at least serve as an illustration of your own eponymous maxim. I mean, how else to explain someone who claims that I’m one “who looks to TV programs to validate reality”, when I exactly and explicitly was making the opposite point that we shouldn’t use fictional scenarios to formulate policy?
Raymond. I’ll write very slowly.
Just because you and Chris H. call something “torture”, doesn’t make it “torture”.
When the premise is flawed, all that follows is equally flawed.
minnesotamama
Thank you for clearing up one persistant confusion I’ve had. I never really understood how Al Frankenn could get close to 50% of the popular vote in Minnesota.
Until now.
From the article:
On this analysis, any call to indict the United States for torture is therefore a lame and diseased attempt to arrive at a moral equivalence between those who defend civilization and those who exploit its freedoms to hollow it out, and ultimately to bring it down. I myself do not trust anybody who does not clearly understand this viewpoint.
Against it, however, I call as my main witness Mr. Malcolm Nance. Mr. Nance is not what you call a bleeding heart. In fact, speaking of the coronary area, he has said that, in battlefield conditions, he “would personally cut bin Laden’s heart out with a plastic M.R.E. spoon.” He was to the fore on September 11, 2001, dealing with the burning nightmare in the debris of the Pentagon. He has been involved with the sere program since 1997. He speaks Arabic and has been on al-Qaeda’s tail since the early 1990s. His most recent book, The Terrorists of Iraq, is a highly potent analysis both of the jihadist threat in Mesopotamia and of the ways in which we have made its life easier. I passed one of the most dramatic evenings of my life listening to his cold but enraged denunciation of the adoption of waterboarding by the United States. The argument goes like this:
1. Waterboarding is a deliberate torture technique and has been prosecuted as such by our judicial arm when perpetrated by others.
2. If we allow it and justify it, we cannot complain if it is employed in the future by other regimes on captive U.S. citizens. It is a method of putting American prisoners in harm’s way.
3. It may be a means of extracting information, but it is also a means of extracting junk information. (Mr. Nance told me that he had heard of someone’s being compelled to confess that he was a hermaphrodite. I later had an awful twinge while wondering if I myself could have been “dunked” this far.) To put it briefly, even the C.I.A. sources for the Washington Post story on waterboarding conceded that the information they got out of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was “not all of it reliable.” Just put a pencil line under that last phrase, or commit it to memory.
4. It opens a door that cannot be closed. Once you have posed the notorious “ticking bomb” question, and once you assume that you are in the right, what will you not do? Waterboarding not getting results fast enough? The terrorist’s clock still ticking? Well, then, bring on the thumbscrews and the pincers and the electrodes and the rack.
We called waterboarding “torture” when Japanese officers did it to American POWs in WWII, and prosecuted it as a war crime. We prosecuted American officers for doing it in Vietnam. And so forth. It’s, er, more than me and Mr. Hitchens who consider it torture.
From reality today:
If you’re an Islamic terrorist currently residing in Cuba, according to ACLU of Colorado executive director Cathryn Hazouri, moving the GITMO detainees to Colorado’s Supermax prison “is simply another form of torture”.
Torture is whatever the Left “feels” it is, and however they need to define it to make their point.
PS: Japanese “waterboarding” involved submerging a person’s head completely under water while beating them until they passed out, and forcing water directly down a person’s nose and mouth to drown them unless they succumbed.
To the Left, if the same word is used, it’s an identical action. This is what passes for research and reasoned argument.
>Mr. Nance told me that he had heard of someone’s being compelled to confess that he was a hermaphrodite …
Here’s another great example of intellectual dishonesty in the waterboard debate.
When KSM was waterboarded, it wasn’t to make him “confess” to being a terrorist. It was to make him REVEAL INFORMATION ABOUT FUTURE ATTACKS!
The information he revealed under duress was true. It stopped other attacks, and exposed details about Al Quada’s organization.
So, if you use waterboarding to get someone to confess to being a hermaphrodite, you’ll probably get a lie. But if you use it to force a reluctant terrorist to reveal sensitive information, if he lies that information can be demonstrated to be a lie — and presumably subject him to additional duress.
This is why waterboarding has produced reliable information, and why the Left insists it produces “lies”.
Thanks again to Raymond for making this point clear. When the left throws around words like “torture” and “waterboarding” and phrases like “torture produces lies”, you have to keep at it and make them continue to speak.
They want you to fill in the mental blanks (“Well, of course I think torture is bad and unreliable in getting a confession”), without questioning EXACTLY what they are talking about when they use the terms they throw around.
P
Judging from their (may I say, tortured) vitriol, to so many “peace” people, the phrase “violations of the Geneva Conventions” (violations of “The U.S. Constitution”, “international law” or “the Ten Commandments”, “the Koran”, or The Kharma Sutra”, OOPS, strike that last one) is simply an attempt to attempt to give a legal veneer to their feeeeeling, O, O, feeeeeling that “the U.S. is engaging in the interrogation of prisoners in a manner of which all good people (them) disapprove.”
First, the term “all good people” is Pauline Kael Factor 101.
Next, the term “manner” involves anything which actually produces results, because “it is axiomatic that these people, of questionable ‘prisoner’ status, you know, would not, except after some immoral treatment by us, you know, tell us anything, you know, that would violate their, you know, code of honor, which is, after all, as good as ours.”
Finally, regarding the term “disapprove”, I’m reminded of FDR’s WW II Sec of War (Henry Stimson) who famously said about spying that “Gentlemen do not read other gentlemen’s mail.’ Fortunately for us, he was marginalized in this regard by the WW II spooks.
By the way, it’s not “please” or “thank you” as you seem to think; it’s “may I”.
Inwood: Why didn’t I think of saying “tortured logic” first. Damn, it was right there staring me in the face, but I couldn’t get past TV show-validations and Christopher H’s feelings. Good one!
OOPS, “Karma”
P
#35. Someone in the government is spying on my e-mail right now & will pick that phrase up! I mean if they can read prisoners’ mail, what makes you think that they’re not reading mine AND I WANT IT STOPPED!
P
Could you explain to me how you can overlook, in the context of not being beastly to the beasts who want to kill us (“we’re better than that”), the proverb
“virtue is its own reward”?
I looked it up & it’s from Ovid & since at least two Supremes say that foreign stuff is assumed in the U. S. Constitution, why don’t you acknowledge that the full force & effect of this proverb vitiates your vile argument condoning torture?
P
OK, “meet the new boss…” as you say, & I hope now that the Election is over Obama is smart enough not to let these guys off scot-free.
But why do I feel that Obama (or his Team), after, you know, study will issue rules, guidelines, etc. (including a new AFM) mainly to provide lots of POW/Terrorist-Internee “defensive law” legalisms for courtroom CYA, which, under the law of unintended consequences, will lessen the chances of getting real answers about terror threats?
Well, here’s a thought experiment. We recall when terrorist thugs decapitated Americans on videotape. But imagine if instead, they had release a videotape of hooded goons subjecting a screaming and begging American soldier or CIA agent to protracted waterboarding until he provided some type of information. I suspect that many of those here who are defending waterboarding would have denounced it as the work of barbarians, and would have hardly hesitated to say that our guy was being tortured. (I’m pretty sure the soldier himself, and his family, would feel much the same way).
Note to any readers who happen to be quite stupid (others please disregard): I am proposing no equivalence between our actions and the actions of the terrorist thugs we fight). I only point out that if the shoe were on the other foot, being inflicted on one of our boys, this treatment would look an awful lot like torture to us.
And I fear that it will happen to our men and women. I think that the enemy will make a point of it, in fact, now that we’ve told the world that we think it is A-OK to subject enemy combatants to it. Not just my opinion—I believe MANY high-ranking military brass have specifically warned that we are increasing the likelihood of our soldiers being tortured by these actions. One notable objector of course has been John McCain (war hero, POW, and moderate conservative). Yes, I know he wiggled a little during his quest for the White House, but I think he stated pretty clearly that this kind of treatment amounts to torture and it’s a mistake for us to go down that road. If you feel Christopher Hitchens has no credibility or moral standing, okay, but it seems a little hard to dismiss John McCain so cavalierly.
There are other reasons why torture is bad policy (beyond the pragmatic fact that it seems generally unreliable, and that more humane tactics are viewed by many experts as just as effective most of the time). I’m anticipating that the right wingers here will view these reasons as hysterical fuzzy-wuzzy global-community liberalism of the worst sort, but I don’t mind. When we torture, our image in the world suffers, and that matters. Segments of the world community that are merely ambivalent towards us will trend more negative in their views. It contributes to the radicalization of new generations of enemies. And once you go down the road of mistreating people, it’s hard to rein that stuff back in before it gets out of control. (Cf. Abu Ghraib, Milgram, and Zimbardo).
OK, so maybe it might produce some benefit in getting some information, some time, and maybe even on those occasions save some lives, but Americans should not torture people. I’d prefer we try to be associated with principled and restrained conduct, not morally questionable and psychologically brutal tactics.
Oz
Off topic response on Franken. Franken never captured 50% of Minnesota votes. Not even close.
You assume simply two dominant parties in error. In reality, there was a third.
Don Barkley, running on an independent/libertarian ticket, who captured over 15%, or 400,000 votes, in a race tied down to the wire (both Franken and Coleman receiving 1,200,000 votes). Although Barkley did not even have his own parties endorsement, nor did he spend money on the passionate advertising Franken and Coleman both indulged in to slam each other.
Result: In an obviously close election, enough people were obviously not besotted with either main party candidate to vote for them.
If even a fraction – even 500 – of those presumably libertarian voters had respected – even been complacent with – Coleman enough to cast votes his way, he’d be seated right now.
Essentially, one could say Libertarian politics lost the race for Coleman as much as Franken did.
Mr. Jackson Re: #26 “Think anyone will notice that “the Government” now in charge of making those distinctions is the OBAMA ADMINISTRATION?”
Exactly. So THINK about the scenario. Hypothetical, of course, so no one gets their feelings hurt.
“Your guy” gets into the White House and takes on “the bad guys.” Pesky people protest, but you don’t care. He’s making the World Safe for Democracy. People get hurt… but it’s those nasty terrorists that hurt us, so really, the revenge is sweet. They deserve it. An eye for an eye. It feels good.
“Your guy” in the White House decides that more monitoring is needed – to quell terrorists at large – and that he, the Executive Branch, needs unprecedented power to do so. He appoints himself new abilities. You applaud this, because he’ll make the world safer and really go after those bad guys. You know, you’re practically his wingman, so he’ll never use those powers against you. It’s all about THEM. It’s high time we got rid of THEM anyway.
He appoints himself the ability to go war without permission from Congress. That’s good, he’ll just be able to bypass more pesky people and get right in there.
He decides the Geneva Convention is not worth the paper it’s written on and really wants a broader definition of torture. HIS definition. He decides that a broader definition of terrorist is in order too. HIS definition. By all means, you say, the better to get the job done!
Then the weather changes. Despite your best efforts, “your guy” doesn’t get back into the White House. Your “enemies’ guy” does.
Suddenly it occurs to you… Your “enemies’ guy” is walking into unprecedented power, fewer Executive checks and balances than ever before in history, and ALL THE DOORS HAVE BEEN UNLOCKED FOR HIM…
With a start, you realize that with this expanded definition of terrorist, it could now be abortion activists who fall into that category. All those things that “your guy” was doing to other people? Gosh, that “other person” could be you.
That damn new guy in the White House! It’s all his fault!
Disclaimer: As I said, this is a rhetorical exercise and not meant to exclusively represent either Bush or Obama or their intentions to a dime.
Rather, it is intended to show why you never want to release all checks and balances on ANYONE in power; let the government torture whoever it pleases, however it pleases, whenever it wants to; unless you like laying the breeding ground for totalitarianism.
Regarding the semantics debate on waterboarding.
John McCain considered American waterboarding and Japanese/Vietnamese waterboarding to be the SAME THING.
He LIVED IT as a POW.
He says IT IS TORTURE.
We, Americans, EXECUTED Japanese after the war for waterboarding as a “WAR CRIME”.
We, Americans, have a short memory.
McCain:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/29/politics/main3554687.shtml
It is NOT just the left who object to the normalization of the experience of drowning, simulated or not.
>Well, here’s a thought experiment. We recall when terrorist thugs decapitated Americans on videotape. But imagine if instead, they had release a videotape of hooded goons subjecting a screaming and begging American soldier or CIA agent to protracted waterboarding until he provided some type of information. I suspect that many of those here who are defending waterboarding would have denounced it as the work of barbarians, and would have hardly hesitated to say that our guy was being tortured. (I’m pretty sure the soldier himself, and his family, would feel much the same way).
*** No moral equivalence, eh? This thought experiment equates decapitating a soldier with pouring water on a terrorist’s face. But there’s no moral equivalence here.
As a minor historical note, the bad guys have been cutting off the heads of their prisoners (Infidels and heretics alike) for centuries. They didn’t suddenly begin this in the 21st century because of “waterboarding”. This is the worst kind of stupidity — it’s pure pop-culture sophistry disguised as intelligent thought.
And once again, just like from our previous conversation where mentioning religion is not the same thing as discussing God, just because you want to call something my brothers experienced as part of their USAFA survival training “torture” doesn’t make it torture. Normal people can recognize the difference between pouring water on a person’s face, forcing water down a person’s throat (Japanese “waterboarding” during WWII), and cutting off a person’s head. Like the example of the ACLU representative in Colorado, it’s rather stupid to conclude that torture is what you “feel” it is. (“I’m pretty sure the soldier himself, and his family, would feel much the same way”).
Once again I invoke “Jackson’s razor.”
PS: Here’s a real experiment, not a thought experiment, one that was actually performed. Let’s have Al Queda cut off the head of their captives, and see how long and prolonged the outrage of the Left is. Let’s see how long they keep discussing the issue and publicly condemning it. Then let’s compare the amount of time they have actually devoted to the subject of pouring water on a prisoner’s face.
By column inch and sheer volume, any way you want to measure it there’s no comparison. The outrage of Ozzie, Raymond and the Left is confined to their “feelings” about waterboarding. Their motivations are political, not humanitarian. If it were otherwise, they would be outraged about the following, and demanding an immediate investigation of what these “different techniques” are.
“In a hearing on Capitol Hill Thursday, the man nominated to be the director of intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, said the government would look at revising the Army Field Manual on interrogation rules, which leaves open the possibility that different techniques can be added for use by intelligence officers and not be publicized.”
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/22/obama.interrogations/index.html
Once again, all you need to do to expose the duplicity and sophomoric reasoning of the Lefty is let them talk. What they say — and don’t say – is equally revealing.
Dr. Jackson – You’re right – it’s impossible to argue with someone who won’t engage in fair debate. Since someone else called moving people to a Supermax prison torture, obviously I must, perforce, agree with that. Riiiight. What do you think I could dig up from some random “conservative” website and accuse you of backing 100%?
In any case, let’s assume that Japanese waterboarding was different in kind – and not merely in degree – from current practice. (If we were to use carefully sterilized instruments to pull fingernails, and gave immediate bandages and antibiotic cream afterward, would that not be torture?) Go look at this photo – this is what an American officer was court-martialed for in Vietnam.
You say that “The information [KSM] revealed under duress was true.” That’s at best half right. Some of it was true, some of it was made up just to stop the torture – and some was deliberate disinformation. (One CIA official cautioned that “many of Mohammed’s claims during interrogation were ‘white noise’ designed to send the U.S. on wild goose chases or to get him through the day’s interrogation session.” For example according to Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, a former FBI agent and the top Republican on the terrorism panel of the House Intelligence Committee, he has admitted responsibility for the Bali nightclub bombing, but his involvement “could have been as small as arranging a safe house for travel. It could have been arranging finance.” Mohammed also made the admission that he was “responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center Operation”, which killed six and injured more than 1,000 when a bomb was detonated in an underground garage, Mohammed did not plan the attack, but he may have supported it. Dr. Michael Welner noted that by offering legitimate information to interrogators, Mohammed had secured the leverage to provide disinformation as well.) That’s a record that, at best, matches what other interrogation techniques produce without sacrificing the moral high ground in an ideological battle, without providing grist for enemy propaganda, without putting our own troops at increased risk, and without betraying our own principles.
When you note how many people, faced with far less aggressive interrogation by police, have confessed to crimes it was later proven they could not have committed – not to mention the historical unreliability of torture as a method of getting to the truth (witch trials, anyone?) – you see why, as I and others here have noted, many in the military say that other methods are more reliable, and don’t have the poisonous side-effects of torture. (Side-effects that Ozzie has listed yet again.)
You say that “aggressive interrogation” isn’t “the ONLY way to proceed”, but the evidence is that it’s not just reserved for high-value targets. Not just Abu Ghraib – look up Spc. Sean Baker or Dilawar the taxi driver. Without clear limits, humans – even the fine human beings in our own armed forces – will do terrible things.
Sure, ‘torture’ can produce information, just like solar power can move a car. The question is, do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? A whole lot of people – not just on “the Left”, including people with lots of experience in this area – say no.
BTW, Ozzie, you can summarize your point about loosening the checks and balances very simply: “If George can take your fourth amendment, then Obama can take your second.”
Minnesotamama: I was including the vote fraud in Franken’s total.
As for your comment 42, I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, and I’m usually pretty good at dissecting Liberal drivel.
Even the profoundly stupid who enter these discussions don’t say things like “ He appoints himself the ability to go war without permission from Congress,”, when there’s the War Powers Act and at least two authorizing votes from Congress that clearly contradict this rhetoric. [Remember the “mistaken” votes of Hillary Clinton? How do you make a mistaken vote if no “permission”/vote was elicited from Congress?]
The people who enter these debates — even the profoundly ignorant ones — normally put up at least a minimal defense of their position (“I feel that X is torture, therefore it is”.) The debate then evolves around whether X is actually “torture”, and whether “feelings: are adequate to define something as torture.
But every once and a while someone raises the IQ (ignorance quotient) to a new level by simply ignoring history and substituting pure rhetoric for an actual argument.
I do not invoke Jackson’s Razor in this case, because the stupidity is obviously not “deliberate”. It’s just there.
Dr. Jackson – Let’s see how many column inches it takes to change U.S. policy vs. changing the policy of terrorists. I’d love to see you carry out that experiment. (I have a prediction or two, if you’re curious…)
Of course we’re outraged at what terrorists do. Why can we not also be outraged at what some in the U.S. do – and since we’re citizens, with a duty to participate in politics, is it surprising that we address words to such politics… while on the terrorist side, we address things like care packages and contributions for body armor for the soldiers tasked with killing or capturing them? (Yup, I’ve done both.)
As I said the previous times this was brought up… “The terrorists don’t give me a vote. I do get one with the U.S. government. I’m not at all ashamed for holding our government and military to a much higher standard than terrorists, and such is my respect and admiration for them that I’m sure they can meet those standards. I did support a “massive effort to kill and imprison as many of these thugs as [we] can” – in Afghanistan, vs. al Qaeda and the Taliban, who had actively attacked us or actively supported and shielded the attackers. Your complaining that I don’t sufficiently decry the terrorists is just a pathetic attempt to distract from your complete refusal to condemn cannibalism.”
>Dr. Jackson – Let’s see how many column inches it takes to change U.S. policy vs. changing the policy of terrorists. I’d love to see you carry out that experiment.
*** Utterly predictable. Excuse any sustained, prolonged criticism of the terrorists because we don’t “control them”.
By the way, you control a terrorist’s policy by killing them.
>Of course we’re outraged at what terrorists do.
*** Yes, I’ve noticed the continuous comments you and others have posted specifically condemning them. Counting this one, we have, let’s see, one.
>As I said the previous times this was brought up… “The terrorists don’t give me a vote. I do get one with the U.S. government.
*** Great logic. The terrorists don’t give you a vote, so you’ll limit your efforts to the actions of the US government. The terrorists don’t give me a vote either, but I don’t confine my “outrage” (real, or in your case, manufactured), to protesting pouring water on terrorists’ faces, while making excuses why we can’t/shouldn’t do anything to stop the slaughter perpetrated by these terrorists. My moral outrage isn’t simply convenient, or politically inspired.
Once again, Jackson’s Razor has to be invoked.
>Your complaining that I don’t sufficiently decry the terrorists is just a pathetic attempt to distract from your complete refusal to condemn cannibalism.
*** What a compelling argument! Using Raymond’s logic, unless my government is accused of practicing cannibalism, there’s nothing for me to condemn here. The cannibals didn’t give me a vote.
This is why arguments of moral relativists who look at issues through their political prism ultimately expose themselves for the shallowness and duplicity of their argument.
Once again boys and girls, absolutely NO ONE has endorsed terrorism as a matter of policy. What is at dispute, is as it has always been, is whether Raymond, Christopher H. or the Colorado ACLU can simply label something as “torture” and therefore make it torture.
Real world discussions of real world issues by real world adults require more than “feelings” to make policy pronouncements. I can point to very real, long lasting (even permanent) changes in the human mind and body as a result of a terrorist’s decapitation of a prisoner (with or without a rusty saw). But when we only use “feelings” to justify a position, we end up with inane comparisons between Japanese atrocities during WWII and things that are done by the US army to US soldiers to prepare them for combat, or similar silly conclusions where putting a terrorist in a SuperMax prison is “torture” (but putting a white person there is not).
These are the things adults discuss and debate when they have a real conversations. Otherwise, all we do is share our opinions, and like I’ve said countless times before, opinions are like a**holes — everyone has one.
P
Let’s not forget Jackson’s dictum:
“The Constitution is not a suicide pact”
That was SCOTUS Justice Robert Jackson.
It could be said of all laws & treaties.
Also, the “we’re better than that” & “virtue is it’s own reward” arguments are not pro-suicide arguments.
And speaking of abortion, I have no problem with the US treating abortion clinic bombers as terrorists.
Finally, the anti-torture guys always presume that the alleged “torturee” (if the CIA is doing it, it must be torture) will make up anything to stop the alleged torture & so the tourturer always gets junk info. Do they have any studies to back this claim up? And do they distinguish between the results sought? That is if the torturer wants someone to say what the people in the witness stand in the Russian show trials had to say, he’ll get it. But only perpetual communist apologizers will be fooled by this theater. Hopefully, serious spooks will be able to evaluate any detailed info they get about terroristic things in progress when they are trying to get the bad guy (whom the do-gooders assume is being tortured) to tell them details as opposed to spouting propaganda.
Of course, now that the alleged torturee knows that the waterboarding has to be stopped after a few seconds, few will say anything.
Dr. Jackson – Yeah, I’m afraid this is about what I’ve come to expect anymore from you. I was impressed that you were able to debate politely at first – and if something was unclear, you asked rather than just manufacture the worst, most tortured possible misinterpretation of what I said.
Now, well, all you do is pretend I said the exact opposite of my plain words, or say that because someone else said something I must also think that, or simply ignore when I point out actual links to where I’ve said what you claim I haven’t.
For an example of the first, we need look no further than “you’ll limit your efforts to the actions of the US government… making excuses why we can’t/shouldn’t do anything to stop the slaughter perpetrated by these terrorists”, when I explicitly listed things I’ve done like “care packages and contributions for body armor for the soldiers tasked with killing or capturing [terrorists]“, and I just provided links establishing that I fully supported the invasion of Afghanistan. (You know, the home base of Al Queda and the Taliban, who’d actually attacked us?)
Look, Dr. Jackson, I’m sure you can find people who hold the positions you hate so much, and argue with them. If you want to argue with me, though, I’d appreciate it if you argue with what I actually write instead of what you wish (hallucinate?) that I wrote.
I’ve already said that, from a moral perspective, I don’t have a problem with torturing someone who’s been determined by a competent tribunal or judicial process to be a terrorist. (Go read those links.) There are two separate things I have a problem with: First, that it appears that the satisfaction we might get from torturing isn’t worth the practical costs we’ll pay for it (and it doesn’t appear to have any actual benefits, compared to other techniques, except that satisfaction of seeing an evil person suffer). Second, that even if we conclude that torture’s worth it for convicted terrorists, there’s no way it can be justified for suspected terrorists, let alone mere ‘detainees’.
The only person I’ve seen volunteer to set up a demonstration waterboarding to try to determine if it’s ‘torture’ or not is Hitchens, and he concluded it is. How about you hook up with Rush Limbaugh and get some contributions together (I’d pony up some cash), organize a public waterboarding like Hitchens, and last longer than him without agreeing with whatever the waterboarder asks you to confirm? Seriously, how come this has never been done? If it’s no worse than a hazing prank, it should be easy to demonstrate that…