Which City Would You Sacrifice?
With the release of the Office of Legal Counsel memos on interrogation techniques, the Left have renewed their cry for war crimes trials (see here). Since the Position Expiration Date has passed, President Obama, too, seems eager to prosecute someone–anyone–for the “war crimes” of keeping America safe. But as Ed Morrissey wonders, who would he prosecute?
Obama can open the door to prosecutions, but who will he prosecute? He’ll find it difficult to go after the interrogators, who relied on some strange opinions from the normally-binding Office of Legal Counsel. The prosecution can try undermining that by claiming it as a Nuremberg defense, but this wasn’t Nazi Germany and the OLC exists to give this kind of legal direction. Interrogators relied on those interpretations in good faith.
That leaves George Tenet and the OLC attorneys, but they didn’t conduct the torture, and the OLC didn’t order the interrogations, either. They responded to a request from the CIA to opine on the legality of the procedures. Holder can prosecute Tenet, but then he’d also have to file charges against several members of Congress who were briefed on the procedures and never objected — including current Speaker Nancy Pelosi. If Tenet would get prosecuted for ordering the interrogation techniques, then Pelosi and others would have to get prosecuted for being accessories in not taking action to stop them.
Obama had it right in the first place. He made the decision to ban those procedures, and he should just keep looking forward. If those interpretations were flawed, and I’d agree that at least some of them were, they’ve been withdrawn.
The term “three ring circus” comes to mind here. If it weren’t so disgusting, I’d support these war crimes trials just to watch Nancy Pelosi and other Congress people roasted on the spit.
There should be no prosecutions because there was no crime, which is precisely what the OLC was supposed to be about (i.e., providing analysis of U.S. statutes). But now, on a bright, sunny, safe day in April 2009, we can look back and convince ourselves that these techniques don’t work. Except they did.
Consider the Justice Department memo of May 30, 2005. It notes that “the CIA believes ‘the intelligence acquired from these interrogations has been a key reason why al Qaeda has failed to launch a spectacular attack in the West since 11 September 2001.’ . . . In particular, the CIA believes that it would have been unable to obtain critical information from numerous detainees, including [Khalid Sheik Mohammed] and Abu Zubaydah, without these enhanced techniques.” The memo continues: “Before the CIA used enhanced techniques . . . KSM resisted giving any answers to questions about future attacks, simply noting, ‘Soon you will find out.’ ” Once the techniques were applied, “interrogations have led to specific, actionable intelligence, as well as a general increase in the amount of intelligence regarding al Qaeda and its affiliates.”
Specifically, interrogation with enhanced techniques “led to the discovery of a KSM plot, the ‘Second Wave,’ ‘to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into’ a building in Los Angeles.” KSM later acknowledged before a military commission at Guantanamo Bay that the target was the Library Tower, the tallest building on the West Coast. The memo explains that “information obtained from KSM also led to the capture of Riduan bin Isomuddin, better known as Hambali, and the discovery of the Guraba Cell, a 17-member Jemmah Islamiyah cell tasked with executing the ‘Second Wave.’ ” In other words, without enhanced interrogations, there could be a hole in the ground in Los Angeles to match the one in New York.
The memo notes that “[i]nterrogations of [Abu] Zubaydah — again, once enhanced techniques were employed — furnished detailed information regarding al Qaeda’s ‘organizational structure, key operatives, and modus operandi’ and identified KSM as the mastermind of the September 11 attacks.” This information helped the intelligence community plan the operation that captured KSM. It went on: “Zubaydah and KSM also supplied important information about al-Zarqawi and his network” in Iraq, which helped our operations against al-Qaeda in that country.
In the thread here, Pho argues repeatedly,
Torture is evil. Those who attempt to justify it, those who attempt to rationalise it, and especially those who attempt to celebrate it (like Sharon) are also evil.
183 times in a month. That is the sort of thing the Gestapo or the KGB did.
The only conclusion is that it’s more acceptable for millions of Americans to die than for one terrorist to be belly-slapped. Or subjected to loud music (or caterpillars). Or waterboarded.
Vice President Dick Cheney is calling for the release of more of these memos so that Americans will have a better idea of the arguments. I’m all for complete release of information, including the information that President Obama won’t want released because it supports these interrogation techniques.
Cross-posted at Gold-Plated Witch on Wheels.
Dana Pico:
San Francisco?
21 April 2009, 5:35 pmjason330:
The only conclusion is that it’s more acceptable for millions of Americans to die than for one terrorist to be belly-slapped
Yeah.. That’s right. That’s the only conclusion.
Enjoy your 50 years in the wilderness idiots.
21 April 2009, 5:58 pmPhoenicians in a time of Romans:
As has been pointed out to you, Sharon, you yourself are now subject to waterboarding if picked up as a *suspected* “right wing extremist”. Again, I point to Andrew Sullivan’s take on the subject:
““It seems that there is a point that is hardwired in us. When we draw water into our respiratory tract to this point we are no longer in control. All hell breaks loose. Instinct tells us we are dying.
I have never been more panicked in my whole life. Once your lungs are empty and collapsed and they start to draw fluid it is simply all over. You know you are dead and it’s too late. Involuntary and total panic.
[...]
So, is it torture?
I’ll put it this way. If I had the choice of being waterboarded by a third party or having my fingers smashed one at a time by a sledgehammer, I’d take the fingers, no question.
It’s horrible, terrible, inhuman torture. I can hardly imagine worse. I’d prefer permanent damage and disability to experiencing it again. I’d give up anything, say anything, do anything.
The Spanish Inquisition knew this. It was one of their favorite methods.
It’s torture. No question. Terrible terrible torture. To experience it and understand it and then do it to another human being is to leave the realm of sanity and humanity forever. No question in my mind.”
He’s been through it. For a few seconds - which was all he could take. Have you?
here’s John McCain’s comment:
“For instance, there has been considerable press attention to a tactic called “waterboarding,” where a prisoner is restrained and blindfolded while an interrogator pours water on his face and into his mouth–causing the prisoner to believe he is being drowned. He isn’t, of course; there is no intention to injure him physically. But if you gave people who have suffered abuse as prisoners a choice between a beating and a mock execution, many, including me, would choose a beating. The effects of most beatings heal. The memory of an execution will haunt someone for a very long time and damage his or her psyche in ways that may never heal. In my view, to make someone believe that you are killing him by drowning is no different than holding a pistol to his head and firing a blank. I believe that it is torture, very exquisite torture.”
And here’s the key words above - “the CIA believes”. This was a cover-your-ass comment made to the FBI when the possibility of CIA members being prosecuted for war crimes was first considered. They have already been exposed as dishonest and deceitful, and further, teh CIA lies about what happens. Back in 2005, even CIA officials were protesting about what was being done. And, of course, the 2009 IG report found that the interrogations were practically useless.
And lastly, we note your dishonesty and inconsistency. Earlier you were claiming you were all for it as a means of punishing terrorists. now that the Eighth Amendment and the fact that none of the people interrogated had been convicted of terrorism has been pointed out to you, you’re back to ’seeking intelligence”.
You are a sadist, a fool, *and* a liar.
And evil. If there is a God who judges people, as Christians believe, you may want to consider whether you’re going to be able to resort to the same sort of sophistry and lies in front of Him/Her.
21 April 2009, 5:59 pmJohn Hitchcock:
SF, Berkely, Chicago
21 April 2009, 6:01 pmX Stryker:
It always seems like the people who wanted to use 9/11 to break the law the most were also the people who hated New York City the most.
21 April 2009, 6:17 pmSharon:
Shorter Pho: It’s ok to incinerate the entire USA.
21 April 2009, 6:22 pmDNW:
“And evil. If there is a God who judges people, as Christians believe, you may want to consider whether you’re going to be able to resort to the same sort of sophistry and lies in front of Him/Her.”
You are preaching from a text you don’t believe in, Carthago.
[It's always amusing to watch the bizarre contortions as secularists try to wield a supernatural sword.]
21 April 2009, 6:33 pmpandora:
So, Sharon, I guess you’d understand if the Iranians decided to water board Roxana Saberi.
21 April 2009, 6:53 pmJohn Hitchcock:
If there is a higher power, that higher power believes just like I do so you’re all in trouble. And evil. And heartless. And spiteful. And idiots.
21 April 2009, 6:55 pmjason330:
The only conclusion one could draw from this post and Sharon’s comments in this thread is that Sharon will be barking in hell for eternity while Satan sodomizes her with a flaming bowling pin for praying for the destruction of America.
It makes perfect sense.
21 April 2009, 7:08 pmYorkshire:
Olympia, WA. The legislators and Governor have made criminals out of normal folk who would like clean dishes. Environmental Whackoism at its worst.
21 April 2009, 7:31 pmRovin:
Please put me down on your list of evil right-wing extremist Patriots (like Sharon). And please remind the idoit above that according to our congress that approved all of the technics in the memos—including waterboarding—were not considered torture.
It’s only ok if no one was waterboarded to prevent it. You see, the rational is if two seconds of hell prevents a national incineration, we must choose the burning cinders because a few morons say so. The liberal mind is such a precious thing to waste………..
21 April 2009, 8:42 pmJohn Hitchcock:
Rovin, you want me to add your blog to my “dangerous” list on my site? Sounds like you do.
21 April 2009, 8:48 pmDana Pico:
Pandora wrote:
Well, she was just sentenced to eight years in prison, and could have faced more. Considering what the Iranians do to some people convicted of serious crimes, like adultery and inciting public disorder, somehow waterboarding seems to pale in comparison.
21 April 2009, 9:24 pmpandora:
So, I’ll put you down as a yes, Dana? I expected a better answer than “hey, look what they’ve done!” I don’t care what Iran does. We are not Iran.
Seriously, on what ground do we stand when it’s our guys/gals being tortured? Do we say it’s okay as long as they stick to our list of enhanced interrogation techniques?
21 April 2009, 9:47 pmJeff:
Most legitimate interrogators recognize the uselessness of information produced under torture. I mean, look at the list of crap KSM confessed to, like a plot to attack an Indonesian oil company run by Henry Kissinger… when, to my knowledge, Kissinger doesn’t own an oil company. So no, torture isn’t done for security, it’s done for revenge. The fake outrage and fearmongering is kinda cute though.
But you know what? I don’t care if torture is useful. It’s wrong. If we let ourselves sink to the moral level of our enemies by torturing and abusing our prisoners, what’s the point of being an American anymore? So to answer your titular question: Raleigh. Because if our decision not to torture costs us lives, I’m more than willing to be the first one down.
21 April 2009, 9:51 pmYorkshire:
Reading the comments reminds me of the debate when Dukakis was asked the question about defending his family in a home invasion. Normal Husband and parents would fight back to defend their families by any means if possible. First protect the family. It was a simple question with passion needed to say what you would do.
Instead, Dukakis went to left field about how he would do no harm to the invaders and did not give an impassioned answer to save and defend, but answered as if he was looking at the situation from afar and gave the PC Book answer. Or as I took it, spare the rights of the criminal.
This is how I see the debate over interrogation. There are people who put the country first and defend at means available, and there are those mirandizing the terrorist.
21 April 2009, 9:59 pmSharon:
John,
Please add my site Gold-Plated Witch on Wheels to your list of right wing extremists, please.
21 April 2009, 10:12 pmSharon:
What’s weird is the same people pontificating about “torture” complain that George Bush didn’t prevent 9/11. So, he gets no credit for preventing attacks on Americans since 9/11, but because he read some memos, consult a mindreader, etc., 9/11 is all his fault.
21 April 2009, 10:15 pmSharon:
For those of you arguing that it’s better to incinerate Americans than belly-slap a terrorist, I’ll bet those people jumping out of the WTC would disagree.
21 April 2009, 10:16 pmPhoenicians in a time of Romans:
For those of you arguing that it’s better to incinerate Americans than belly-slap a terrorist, I’ll bet those people jumping out of the WTC would disagree.
So you’re okay with you being waterboarded if barack Obama says it is necessary to prevent Americans being incinerated?
21 April 2009, 10:18 pmSharon:
WLS at Patterico’s Pontifications asks what the charges should be and who should be prosecuted. Here’s a sample:
21 April 2009, 10:24 pmSharon:
Pho,
21 April 2009, 10:25 pmWaterboarding as practiced by Americans is preferable to incineration.
Sharon:
Jeff,
21 April 2009, 10:28 pmDoes this guy qualify as a legitimate interrogator?
Gretchen:
All the handwringing and the crocodile tears that are shed on the Internet about the waterboarding of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed–but there is barely a mention in any of those wails that it was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed who boasted about being the butcher who personally beheaded Daniel Pearl.
Why is the Obama Administration so loath to release the data revealing what was gleaned from those interrogations–data that we have been told prevented other attacks? Is it because his handlers at MoveOn.org won’t “allow” that?
It is obvious to all, including the White House Press Corps, that someone is pulling Obama’s strings. Will Obama be man enough to stand up to George Soros and his other handlers or will he continue to be the compliant puppet of the far left?
21 April 2009, 10:29 pmRovin:
Please do John. And keep me away from the evil CSPT site…….it attracts too many lemmings
21 April 2009, 10:32 pmJeff:
Sharon - no. Blair has little experience in interrogation itself. He himself even notes that the information gotten from torture may well have been acquired by other means.
Let’s put this differently, Sharon. Are we really going to let a bunch of f*ckwits in caves fundamentally change our values?
21 April 2009, 10:33 pmSharon:
Pho,
I added you to my endorsements.
Jeff,
21 April 2009, 10:45 pmOur values haven’t changed a bit. And I’d say that if even a high-ranking Obama official says the techniques yielded valuable information, then you should take that as a sign that such techniques are valuable. To argue that we “might” have gotten them some way is just speculation. We “might” have sprouted wings and learned to fly, after all.
Phoenicians in a time of Romans:
Waterboarding as practiced by Americans is preferable to incineration.
It’s a simple question, Sharon.
Are you okay with you being waterboarded if Barack Obama says it is necessary to prevent Americans being incinerated?
21 April 2009, 10:48 pmSharon:
Again, Pho, I answered that.
21 April 2009, 10:49 pmRovin:
Our values were changed on September 11th Jeff. Just as America’s values changed when we dropped two nukes on Japan when our leadership decided it would prevent hundreds of thousands more deaths. You can struggle with your moral values all you want, but when this current “leadership” strips this nation of any way to prevent another mass murder of innocent loved ones, please remind all of us that at least our values were intact.
21 April 2009, 11:03 pmGretchen:
Take a few minutes to read about the S.E.R.E. training that thousands of US military aviators undergo in preparation for at least a taste of the hell that awaits them if they fall into the hands of our enemies. What some deem “torture” to terrorists is considered “training” for our own military.
The problem is that most of the most “shocked” members of Congress are well aware of S.E.R.E. training–but apparently hold terrorists in higher regard as far as their “comfort” goes than they hold members of the US military.
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=23220
21 April 2009, 11:04 pmPhoenicians in a time of Romans:
Again, Pho, I answered that.
No, you did not. You dishonestly evaded the question, as you well know, and as everyone can see.
It’s a simple question, Sharon.
Are you okay with you being waterboarded if Barack Obama says it is necessary to prevent Americans being incinerated?
Take a few minutes to read about the S.E.R.E. training that thousands of US military aviators undergo in preparation for at least a taste of the hell that awaits them if they fall into the hands of our enemies. What some deem “torture” to terrorists is considered “training” for our own military.
Let’s see:
21 April 2009, 11:18 pmSharon:
No, Pho, I didn’t allow you to set up a strawman argument. I answered your question.
21 April 2009, 11:36 pmSharon:
And why is it that those who have seen the intelligence gathered say these techniques yield valuable information? They can’t all be wrong.
21 April 2009, 11:38 pmblubonnet:
Torture does not work. It brings only empty words that really mean “Stop this excruciating pain”. Not to mention, IT CAN’T BE USED IN COURT!
Torture creates terrorists, because, it makes us recognized as a hideous rogue nation. If moderate Muslims thought well of us before our torture policies, THEY DON’T NOW. More of them want to join the radicals and kill. MORE AMERICAN SOLDIERS encounter IEDs and die, and lose limbs, and get blinded, and paralyzed, and have traumatic head injuries, and get their faces blown up, and lose their testicles, and are emotionalloy destroyed for the rest of their lives. Thanks Sharon, for supporting such policies, THAT HAVE BEEN PROVEN TO PROLIFERATE THE WAR AND ITS HORRORS!
You, Sharon, and your Rightie-tightie shivering in your shorts, are the ugly face of America. We that recognize the truth, listen to professionals in the intelligence community, stating the absurdity of your position, would like to change that. Your attitude is NOT the America, we have come to know and love. YOU don’t represent America. You represent tyrany. There is no other word for it! I’m ashamed that you could even speak for America. It’s not about what is best for America. It’s just standing besides your extremists side of the party.
But, the good news is (if you are a rich neo-con in the defense industry), that those like the Bush family, and Cheney, and all their business partners will be rolling in the dough for years to come, because these practices only make the “war on terror” never ending.
Besides all that, we now are not the honorable, democratic, respected nation, we used to be. We are one of the ugliest thugs, with the nastiest weapons too, on this planet. NOT, the real heart of America and its principles represented in its origins. You are disgusting beyond words.
22 April 2009, 12:19 amElizabeth Miller:
I must admit that Cheney did make a very good point in calling for the release of the memos that purportedly report the ‘‘success of the effort’’…on a number of different levels, many of which he most certainly did not intend. For starters, Cheney may have played no small part in fast-tracking the process of independent investigations, by the Justice Department and by Congress, into the Bush administration’s policies regarding the use of torture. And, in a deliciously ironic act, Cheney’s call for the release of the memos may have substantially increased the likelihood that these investigations can avoid being turned into a media circus and a vitriolic, partisan-driven process that would benefit no one.
The argument over whether or not interrogations that employ the use of torture provide any useful intelligence that would result in saving innocent life really misses the central question of the debate - which is, should the use of torture by agents of the US government ever be justified?
I would argue that this is the absolute crux of the matter and should define any debate about torture. In my view, torture should NOT be legalized or regulated, under ANY circumstances. That is not to say, however, that interrogators, acting in good conscience, will never decide to resort to using torture if they believe it to be absolutely necessary and effective to save innocent life under the circumstances of an imminent terrorist attack. But, even under these extreme conditions, the torture used in such circumstances should NEVER be justified or labeled as anything other than the evil it is. While the exigent circumstances may mitigate the use of torture in a court of law to reduce the penalty for its use, the practice itself should never be justified or condoned.
In Michael Ignatieff’s A Lesser Evil: Political Ethics in an Age of Terror ( I would very highly recommend this book!), I found two passages that may be of interest here:
“The Israeli Supreme Court has ruled that an agent of the state may make a defense of necessity if accused of torturing someone: this excuse might mitigate the penalty for violating the law, but it would not excuse the torture itself, which remains criminal.” (Michael Ignatieff, The Lesser Evil, p.13)
“…the ‘necessity’ defense has the effect of allowing one who acts under the circumstances of necessity to escape criminal liability. The ‘necessity’ defense does not possess any additional normative value. In addition, it does not authorize the use of physical means for the purposes of allowing investigators to execute their duties in circumstances of necessity. The very fact that a particular act does not constitute a criminal act (due to the ‘necessity’ defense) does not, in itself, authorize the administration to carry out this deed and, in doing so, infringe upon human rights.” (Israeli Supreme Court Judgment on the Interrogation Methods Applied by Israel’s General Security Services, September 6, 1999)
We should expect that the ‘necessity’ defense would be used in the rarest of circumstances, if ever. But, even then, it should not be used as an excuse for engaging in torture or as a justification to avoid criminal liability for the use of torture…period.
22 April 2009, 12:36 amblubonnet:
Cheney lies, and intelligent informed people all know that.
22 April 2009, 12:40 amPhoenicians in a time of Romans:
No, Pho, I didn’t allow you to set up a strawman argument. I answered your question.
No, you did not. You dishonestly evaded the question, as you well know, and as everyone can see.
It’s a simple question, Sharon.
Are you okay with you being waterboarded if Barack Obama says it is necessary to prevent Americans being incinerated?
22 April 2009, 12:53 amblubonnet:
This might be of interest…The 14 points of Fascism:
Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:
1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism -
Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays. TOP
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights -
Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc. TOP
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause -
The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc. TOP
4. Supremacy of the Military -
Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized. TOP
5. Rampant Sexism -
The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homo-sexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution. TOP
6. Controlled Mass Media -
Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common. TOP
7. Obsession with National Security -
Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses. TOP
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined -
Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s policies or actions. TOP
9. Corporate Power is Protected -
The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite. TOP
10. Labor Power is Suppressed -
Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed. TOP
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts -
Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked. TOP
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment -
Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption -
Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders. TOP
14. Fraudulent Elections -
22 April 2009, 1:19 amSometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
blubonnet:
The above was from a professor of political science, if anyone on the Right-wing leaning side cares. Usually professionals don’t hold any water in your perspectives, jus tyour political party’s opinions. Pathetic.
22 April 2009, 1:22 amblubonnet:
This one is the most important point here.
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights -
22 April 2009, 1:26 amBecause of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc. TOP
jcw:
Some other tenets of fascism in case people want to know:
“Fascists advocate the creation of a single-party state.” Never heard a Republican advocate that.
“Fascist governments forbid and suppress criticism and opposition to the government and the fascist movement.” Yes, all of those war protests and protests against W were just a figment of our imagination.
“Fascism opposes class conflict and blames capitalist liberal democracies for creating class conflict…”Hmmm, this is interesting. Who does this sound like.
“Fascists reject the individualism and self-interest of laissez-faire capitalism.”Now who does this sound more like.
Should I mention that Fascists loved public education and saw it as a way to help indoctrinate its citizens.
Now, personally, blubonnet, I don’t agree with torture. I think torture is done with revenge in mind and yields very little to our safety despite what Dick Cheney says. But an off topic rant equating Republicans with fascists doesn’t advance the argument because it can be demonstrated that the left embraces some of the tenets of Fascism.
And blubonnet, you shouldn’t be so impressed because something was written by a professor of political science. I’m sure he had no agenda when writing his 14 points because we all know that university professors by and large are apolitical.
22 April 2009, 6:16 amPhoenician in a time of Romans:
“Fascists advocate the creation of a single-party state.” Never heard a Republican advocate that.
Karl Rove.
“Fascist governments forbid and suppress criticism and opposition to the government and the fascist movement.” Yes, all of those war protests and protests against W were just a figment of our imagination.
Free speech zones.
“Fascism opposes class conflict and blames capitalist liberal democracies for creating class conflict…”Hmmm, this is interesting. Who does this sound like.
Art Downs.
Fascists reject the individualism and self-interest of laissez-faire capitalism.”Now who does this sound more like.”
Conformity worshipping homophobes.
Should I mention that Fascists loved public education and saw it as a way to help indoctrinate its citizens.
Thomas Jefferson was a fascist?
22 April 2009, 6:40 amArt Downs:
Torture should never be done with revenge in mind but there are times when information obtained in a timely fashion can save a lot of innocent lives.
The Left has railed against ’snooping’ and attempted to exploit the latent paranoia in some people. They would have us believe that certain surveillance techniques allow folks to monitor their very private messages. What makes these messages so interesting? Does anyone really care about their personal lives?
The Left is simultaneously opposed to the extraction of information from captured terrorists.
So what are we to do about future threats?
There is the ‘law enforcement’ approach that is an ‘after the fact’ investigation that involves a lot of crime scene tape. WIth suicide perpetrators, what good does this do?
We see an analogy in domestic law enforcement. Liberals would disarm potential crime victims with the assurance that the police will provide all the protection that they need. This is a lie and we all know that when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.
An affinity for thugs and terrorists is a hallmark of the Loony Left and this crowd is now in power in Washington.
22 April 2009, 7:38 amYorkshire:
Who here has been tortured or waterboarded?
22 April 2009, 7:45 amSharon:
Torture isn’t legal. But we’re now faced with the prospects of people giving legal analysis being prosecuted for performing the essential duties of their jobs, while those perportedly doing the torturing are given a pass. This makes us neither safer nor freer.
Pho–your list is the dumbest thing you’ve posted to date.
Blu–the rest of the world hated us before 9/11, before waterboarding. What was the excuse then?
22 April 2009, 8:53 amSharon:
Are we really supposed to be horrified that the terrorists were submitted to standard training measures for American soldiers?
(I stole that line from Orrin Judd, btw)
22 April 2009, 9:20 amjcw:
Please Pho, talk about dishonesty.
In the article about Karl Rove, he would like a “permanent Republican majority”. What Democrat wouldn’t want that. And where in permanent republican majority is the call specifically of a single party state. Majority implies other players. Idiot.
In your second rebuttal notice the word forbid in the fascist quote. I don’t advocate free speech zones but how is free speech forbidden in a free speech zone. Idiot.
Please be more specific in your Art Downs example.
The fourth point deals specifically with fascism and economics. I can sure see what homophobes have to do with the “individualism and self interest of laissez-faire capitalism.” See this is where your internet parser assholeness gets in your way. You have to read the whole quote, not just pick words out of it. Idiot.
And Thomas Jefferson advocating the use of public schools for indoctrination. Please. Liar.
I agree with Sharon, try harder next time.
22 April 2009, 10:09 amDNW:
“Are you okay with you being waterboarded if Barack Obama says it is necessary to prevent Americans being incinerated?”
The implicit “moral equivalency” premise nonsense aside: Are you ok with being incinerated in order to prevent enemy combatants from being waterboarded?
22 April 2009, 11:24 amPhoenician in a time of Romans:
Are we really supposed to be horrified that the terrorists were submitted to standard training measures for American soldiers?
Interesting point there…
By the way, Sharon, there’s a simple question you have yet to answer:
“Are you okay with you being waterboarded if Barack Obama says it is necessary to prevent Americans being incinerated?”
The implicit “moral equivalency” premise nonsense aside: Are you ok with being incinerated in order to prevent enemy combatants from being waterboarded?
Your presmise is faulty. The waterboarding of enemy combatants does not protect me from being incinerated.
22 April 2009, 2:51 pmPhoenician in a time of Romans:
As it turns out, Americans torturing kills Americans.
DNW, why do you want American soldiers to be killed?
22 April 2009, 3:07 pmDNW:
“The waterboarding of enemy combatants does not protect me from being incinerated.”
Carthago,
You need to review your own assumptions in what you yourself had written regarding an Obama commanded waterboarding.
You did not stipulate it as actually reasonable; you did not stipulate it as efficacious; you did not specially stipulate it as founded, or justified.
You simply proposed a conditional in which you asked Sharon to evaluate the costs of a consequent against your antecedent supposition of an executive claim of necessity.
If you don’t want to play your own game, man, fine. But you are wasting everyone’s time, including your own, by pretending that you do.
“Are you okay with you being waterboarded if Barack Obama says it is necessary to prevent Americans being incinerated?”
The implicit “moral equivalency” premise nonsense aside: Are you ok with being incinerated in order to prevent enemy combatants from being waterboarded?
22 April 2009, 3:43 pmEric:
Uh, sure you would. Right up till the time when the first finger got smashed, and you realized your hands were going to be permanently crippled. Please try to get a grip here!
22 April 2009, 3:50 pmArt Downs:
Again Blu shows her ignorance of history. The German military was not in a position of supremacy during the Nazi era and was a hotbed of hostility towards National Socialism.
German military leaders have never been big on interference with politics and the coup effort was done in a rather mild fashion. Franco was a general but Mussolini was a journalist and not a soldier.
I suppose Blu will uncritically accept anything she finds in a blog if the general tenor supports her misconceptions.
22 April 2009, 4:48 pmburninbush:
Gretchen:
Take a few minutes to read about the S.E.R.E. training that thousands of US military aviators undergo in preparation for at least a taste of the hell that awaits them if they fall into the hands of our enemies. What some deem “torture” to terrorists is considered “training” for our own military.
++++++++++++
Well, let’s see. Our aviators in training KNOW it’s training only, they also know that the people doing the training will be in serious difficulty if they injure their trainees — and that know that before the week ends they’ll be done with this unit.
Yeah, that’s just the same as doing someone 183 times in a month, fer shure.
What has happened to your brain, that you can swallow crap like that?
I’ll tell y’all something: the society you live within knows beyond doubt that waterboarding is torture, and so does the rest of the world. You might want to consider the tiny corner in which you who approve of it exist.
The CIA people who requested those covering memos knew it was wrong, and so did the people who destroyed the interrogation tapes. That leaves only the useful idiots on blogs like this one who still believe it’s the American way.
22 April 2009, 5:15 pmPhoenicians in a time of Romans:
If you don’t want to play your own game, man, fine. But you are wasting everyone’s time, including your own, by pretending that you do.
“Are you okay with you being waterboarded if Barack Obama says it is necessary to prevent Americans being incinerated?”
The implicit “moral equivalency” premise nonsense aside: Are you ok with being incinerated in order to prevent enemy combatants from being waterboarded?
In that case, no, of course not. If some psychopath said “I will waterboard person X unless you burn to death”, I would not agree to burn to death.
A person who set up such an option would be a psychopath, just as a nation which routinely tortures the innocent and guilty for months at a time based on a false assumption that this “protects” it is sick and evil. I would, of course, object and seek to prevent any such psychopath from being in a position to incinerate me, just as I object and would seek to prevent any such sick and evil regime from torturing prisoners.
Now that I have answered your question, why don’t you answer mine? And don’t evade it as Sharon did.
“Are you okay with you being waterboarded if Barack Obama says it is necessary to prevent Americans being incinerated?”
And, as a bonus question, why do you want American soldiers to be killed?
22 April 2009, 6:30 pmDana Pico:
BurninBush wrote:
Hmmm. Well, if a terrorist was waterboarded 182 times, and never actually harmed — though certainly terrorized — wouldn’t you think he’d figure out that the people doing the interrogation aren’t planning on killing him?
An argument can certainly be made concerning diminishing returns when it comes to that kind of interrogation being made so frequently, but the question is: does it yield valuable returns at all? Note that from yesterday’s Washington Post, not exactly a hard-right wing site, taking information directly from the memos President Obama had released, is the documentation that in at least some instances, the harsh interrogation produced actionable results and saved lives.
Now, I understand that this does not fit the “it was torture” meme from our friends on the left, and perhaps Sharon asked too big a question when she asked which city our friends on the left would sacrifice to never use harsh interrogation methods again. Si, I’d narrow it down: if the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad saved just one life, was it worth it?
If saving just one life does not make it worthwhile, what about two? Perhaps you’d be more comfortable with ten or twenty? But at some point, if harsh interrogation has saved any lives at all, you have to decide at what point it becomes justified.
And remember: the pie-in-the-sky answer that it is never justified means that you’d be saying, inter alia, that if declining to use harsh interrogation resulted in the deaths of every American on earth it stil should not be done.
22 April 2009, 7:27 pmDana Pico:
The Phoenician wrote:
in which he included a link to a 2006 article which claimed that torture does not produce good information. Yet, in the very memos that President Obama released, we have documented evidence that waterboarding did produce actionable information, information which foiled terrorist plots and very probably saved lives.
Of course, we don’t know who wasn’t killed; we just know that terror plots were frustrated. Perhaps, just perhaps, they’d never have come to fruition anyway, or the bombs used would have been duds, or any of a number of other problems could have prevented any lives from having been lost. In a way, that’s like the evidence that smoking causes cancer: we know that it does, but we don’t know just which smokers will develop cancer, because not all do. Nor do we know which non-smokers would have taken up smoking, and died from lung cancer, absent anti-smoking programs; we just know, statistically, that some lives were saved, but the specific individuals cannot be identified.
This, I think, is part of the reason that our friends on the left are viewing this so abstractly: we cannot say, for certain, that because KSM spilled his guts about the Liberty Tower attack that Blubonnet, specifically, is alive today but would otherwise be dead. But the fact is that someone’s life was saved; our friends on the left ought to realize this.
22 April 2009, 7:38 pmDana Pico:
Then there was this story:
This I see as a judgement matter. ADM Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence, said that the methods worked, and provided valuable information, but he said that there’s no way to know if the information could have been obtained by other methods. He said that the political fallout from the tactics used made the whole thing a net loss.
But that leaves the very important question: a net loss compared to what? How many lives were saved by this information, and how many lives would have to be saved before the political costs was worth it? Me, I prefer saving lives.
22 April 2009, 7:51 pmSharon:
Fortunately for us, we won’t have to calculate how many lives were saved versus how many would have been lost. And, in fact, the lunacy on display here from the leftwingers is a small price to pay for the fact that no Americans were killed by terrorists here. Unfortunately, the way Obama is conducting his foreign policy could be emboldening our enemies, who really like these things.
BTW, Pho, I did answer your question.
22 April 2009, 8:48 pmPhoenicians in a time of Romans:
Yet, in the very memos that President Obama released, we have documented evidence that waterboarding did produce actionable information, information which foiled terrorist plots and very probably saved lives.
Exact quote please, indicating source of information cited in memo. The CIA has already been shown to lie over this matter.
22 April 2009, 9:39 pmPhoenicians in a time of Romans:
This, I think, is part of the reason that our friends on the left are viewing this so abstractly: we cannot say, for certain, that because KSM spilled his guts about the Liberty Tower attack that Blubonnet, specifically, is alive today but would otherwise be dead. But the fact is that someone’s life was saved; our friends on the left ought to realize this.
I see. So ‘we cannot say for certain” translates into “the fact is that someone’s life was saved”.
Whose life, Dana? When? On what basis do you make this assertion? What is the source of your information, and what agenda does it have?
And, by the way, Dana, perhaps you might like to answer the question Sharon is too afriad to answer.
“Are you okay with you being waterboarded if Barack Obama says it is necessary to prevent Americans being incinerated?”
22 April 2009, 9:45 pmPhoenicians in a time of Romans:
And, alas, Dana, you seem to be discounting the number of Americans that have died because the US tortures people.
Your daughter is a soldier. The torture of prisoners motivates suicide bombers, and makes her less safe.
22 April 2009, 9:48 pmArt Downs:
The above was from a professor of political science, if anyone on the Right-wing leaning side cares. Blu
I thought it was a quote from an astrologer or phrenologist. They are about as authoritative as your typical professor of political science.
22 April 2009, 10:27 pmSharon:
Pho,
Why don’t you actually click on any of the links provided? We have linked multiple times to various experts who have said that these techniques offered valuable and actionable intelligence, foiling at least one plot.
Comparing the lives of average Americans living at home with soldiers fighting a war is a false comparison. Soldiers go to war and expect to encounter danger. People going to work in office buildings don’t expect to die in them.
23 April 2009, 12:20 amblubonnet:
You are a fool, Art. The only reason I had to mention that is because you discount ANYthing that doesn’t fit your Rush Limbaugh type vision, and if professional positions hold any weight, and apparently even that doesn’t do it, to snap you out of your comatose perspective, which is perpetuating the demise of this country and all it has ever stood for, I’ll use it, as a chance to wake up those like yourself, who are the defense industry’s ideal chumps. A delsusional enabler of this country’s demise, that’s what you are. Or go smoke one of your cigars in your silk robe, and drink more brandy, and bask in your MIC corporate cartoon world.
23 April 2009, 1:55 amblubonnet:
Who wants to see a documentary film about this torture thing? You want to hear from some soldiers that did it? Or or you going to cover your eyes? Here’s a chance to show you have some objectivity. It’s called “Taxi to the Dark Side”.
23 April 2009, 2:05 amhttp://freedocumentaries.org/theatre.php?filmid=204&id=1118&wh=1000×720
John Hitchcock:
Shorter blu: Oh yeah? Conspiracy!
23 April 2009, 2:13 amPhoenician in a time of Romans:
Dana, another comment from someone who has been there:
Do you still support the US torturing prisoners, knowing that it will increase the danger to your daughter if she is sent off to Iraq to fight in the war Bush started?
23 April 2009, 5:10 amArt Downs:
Again Blu shows her ignorance and partisanship.
Her ’source’ mentioned election fraud. Where in the USA is election fraud most common? Is it not in places where corrupt political machines hold sway?
These seem to be Democrat strongholds, in cities such as New York and Chicago.
Then again, what does Blu know about anything? Has she any real world experience that is demonstrated by her words?
23 April 2009, 6:03 amThomas Tallis:
you got nothin’ against the actual thing she linked, so you hem-haw-ad-hom
truly pathetic
23 April 2009, 10:22 amSharon:
Do you still support the US torturing prisoners
I support using legal methods to obtain information from terrorists and other combatants. That’s what everybody else said, as well.
And be realistic, Pho. You don’t really care about Dana’s daughter’s safety. For you, it’s just another political point.
23 April 2009, 11:01 amDana Pico:
Phoe proved my point. When I said:
he responded:
A terrorist attack was prevented, and you are hyping on the fact that we don’t know which individual person’s life was saved. Yet if a terrorist attack was prevented, unless you assume that the attack would have not have resulted in any deaths, then you have to assume that someone’s life was saved. That fact is enough for most (logical) people.
23 April 2009, 11:12 amDana Pico:
The Phoenician wrote:
The question is illogical, because neither Sharon nor I are even remotely affiliated with any groups which would be involved in such. I would not support the indiscriminate waterboarding of all Arabs until we found the one who might be involved, but in the case of the high-value prisoners, we knew that they were involved in al Qaeda.
Now, if you’re trying to just ask some silly, “Would you do this if it would prevent that” type of question, no, I wouldn’t like it, but yeah, I’d do it. But that’s easy to say, when not actually faced with the situation, isn’t it?
23 April 2009, 11:16 amDana Pico:
Probably belongs in one of the pirate threads, but this one is getting a lot more traffic. From today’s Philadelphia Inquirer:
23 April 2009, 11:21 amYorkshire:
Just read a good article where BO wants it both ways and the middle on the “enhanced” interogation methods.
The other day he took the Nuremburg way with the CIA - Just following orders. Then he said he wasn’t interested in prosecuting the acts of the previous administration.
Apparently, I suppose George Soros has direct access to his blackberry and told him he had to prosecute Bush. Well, the meek BO listened, checked with his TelePrompTer and told Eric Holder to do it. Sorta like Pilate washing his hands anology to me. That way, he’s allegedly passing his stopped buck to Holder to go after the previous administration.
Maybe the reps will wake up and see he had no intention of working with them, since BO has opened pandoras box and it may not be abled to be closed when Holder acts.
23 April 2009, 12:29 pmburninbush:
An argument can certainly be made concerning diminishing returns when it comes to that kind of interrogation being made so frequently, but the question is: does it yield valuable returns at all? Note that from yesterday’s Washington Post, not exactly a hard-right wing site, taking information directly from the memos President Obama had released, is the documentation that in at least some instances, the harsh interrogation produced actionable results and saved lives. >danapico
+++++++++++
LOLOL — who wrote the memos? Tell ya what, let’s go to the tapes and make an independent judgement on what they learned. Oops, we can’t do that because the CIA destroyed the tapes.
Why on earth would they do that?
One reason might be the timestamps on them — they were done well before the infamous DOJ memos approving harsh methods. Another reason might be that they’d show a lot of attention given to trying to make a non-existent connection to Iraq.
The whole house of cards might fall down; those performing the early interrogations would clearly not fall under Obama’s blanket immunity — they didn’t have any formal permission from above, even the fig-leaf that the memos later provided.
Wouldn’t it be sweet to see a bunch of them wearing orange coveralls?
23 April 2009, 12:38 pmDNW:
I’m going to try and use some of the available text features in this response; specifically the block quote function. If they don’t work …
Carthago quoted me, and responded:
Well Carthago, some persons sharing your overall perspective seemingly would. Thus, ” …if our decision not to torture costs us lives, I’m more than willing to be the first one down.”
That sub-category of persons apparently does not include you.
Apparently you are not really arguing against torture because you think it is intrinsically “evil” as you imply, but because you think that torture won’t produce sufficiently useful results. At least that is the only argument you have provided. You have after all, been challenged on your metaphysic of evil, but have declined to elaborate on it. Thus, your utility argument for labeling an act “evil” is all we really have by which to judge your own judgment regarding the meaning of “evil”.
A return bonus question first: Why do you want American citizens at home to be killed?
Now to address your other issue. Let’s forego analyzing the suppositional incoherence of your question, and its faulty implicit moral equivalence standard, and focus instead on seeing it only in the context you have laid out.
You said that you would not be willing to die to facilitate the delusions of a malevolent executive intent on destroying individual citizens for the ostensible sake of some collective of persons.
Well, that seems to me to parallel comrade Obama’s case rather neatly. You have posited him through your parallel as a psychopath. I too tried to prevent him from getting into a position of power. But there were just too many emotionally overwrought persons and clients of the state in thrall to him and his party, to overcome at the ballot box.
That said I think that “psychopath” is too strong a characterization when considering a hypothetical Obama such as you have posited, and I would prefer to apply the term “morally defective” (Probably through no real fault of his own.)
Yet, even then, no, I wouldn’t lay down on Obama’s aquatic altar of Baal to save, say, the city of Detroit, from the firey consequences of it’s own ideologically deranged political choices. (Detroit is [according to the Bay Area Center for Voting Research] the most liberal city in the United States, as well as the most politically dysfunctional, and illiterate [Newsweek]).
But then, it’s difficult to understand what you are really trying to get at unless we start filling in the blanks for you. And that is something I am reluctant to do, despite having made reference to what I think are some of your moral equivalence assumptions.
23 April 2009, 1:20 pmSharon:
Obama released these particular memos for poltical purposes, to smear the Bush administration and those who were involved in protecting the U.S. from further attack. It’s quite easy to do that from the comfort of 2009.
But now that Teh One has opened this can of worms, he can’t close the lid. That’s why Cheney is calling for the release of all the memos which detailed what information we got and how valuable (or not) it was. If Democrats want show trials, they will certainly get a fight over it, and many of them, including Speaker Pelosi, will end up roasted on the same spit.
It’s an unwinnable situation. Our security has been compromised. We’ve given valuable info to the enemy all for political payback. If Barack Obama and the Democrats running Congress insist on continuing down this track, they could be well on the way to becoming the minority party in 2010 (there are already arguments in this direction). Americans aren’t going to be terribly sympathetic to a bunch of terrorists who wanted to kill their children. I know I’m not. And Blu’s nonsense that it was waterboarding that caused these jerks to go nuts is lunacy itself. Well, I guess if you don’t count the multiple attacks on American targets throughout the 1990s, maybe that BS makes sense to you.
In any event, this fiasco spotlights Obama’s inexperience in running anything, and why that is dangerous.
23 April 2009, 1:43 pmSharon:
Wouldn’t it be sweet to see a bunch of them wearing orange coveralls?
Nancy Pelosi? You betcha!
23 April 2009, 1:43 pmblubonnet:
You all supporting torture have abandoned whatever moral parameters you had prior. You have no respect for the laws of this country or the international law.
And if you think you can justify by words of Cheney’s you’re delusional besides. You haven’t figured out yet, he’s a liar, and a war profiteer.
And you don’t mind that this policy only perpetuates this war.
You don’t mind that over a million mostly innocent Iraqis, and over 4000 Americans have been killed or permanently maimed.
You don’t mind that the deception upon the US population, starting this war has killed hundreds of thousands of mostly innocent human beings.
Your positions are disgraceful, as are you.
You are sociopaths.
23 April 2009, 2:13 pmJohn Hitchcock:
Hey, blu, check out the vid I posted. And, blu, nobody here has taken a stand in support of torture. Of course, you have never let little things like facts get in your way, so you likely won’t start now.
23 April 2009, 2:17 pmblubonnet:
Wow, John Hitchcock, you’ve memorized the cute little phrases often used in political discussions.
FACTS are what I’ve always been presenting and you all ignore.
23 April 2009, 2:23 pmblubonnet:
Naomi Wolf has studied the demise of democracy, (Her book The End of America is worth checking out) and the steps put in place to achieve that. Believe me, there has been factions with that exact intent. There has been intervening forces in our history preventing it, but it’s worth researching, if you dare to. But here, are Naomi’s warnings.
It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable - as the author and political journalist Joe Conason, has put it, that it can happen here. And that we are further along than we realise.
Conason eloquently warned of the danger of American authoritarianism. I am arguing that we need also to look at the lessons of European and other kinds of fascism to understand the potential seriousness of the events we see unfolding in the US.
1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
After we were hit on September 11 2001, we were in a state of national shock. Less than six weeks later, on October 26 2001, the USA Patriot Act was passed by a Congress that had little chance to debate it; many said that they scarcely had time to read it. We were told we were now on a “war footing”; we were in a “global war” against a “global caliphate” intending to “wipe out civilisation”. There have been other times of crisis in which the US accepted limits on civil liberties, such as during the civil war, when Lincoln declared martial law, and the second world war, when thousands of Japanese-American citizens were interned. But this situation, as Bruce Fein of the American Freedom Agenda notes, is unprecedented: all our other wars had an endpoint, so the pendulum was able to swing back toward freedom; this war is defined as open-ended in time and without national boundaries in space - the globe itself is the battlefield. “This time,” Fein says, “there will be no defined end.”
Creating a terrifying threat - hydra-like, secretive, evil - is an old trick. It can, like Hitler’s invocation of a communist threat to the nation’s security, be based on actual events (one Wisconsin academic has faced calls for his dismissal because he noted, among other things, that the alleged communist arson, the Reichstag fire of February 1933, was swiftly followed in Nazi Germany by passage of the Enabling Act, which replaced constitutional law with an open-ended state of emergency). Or the terrifying threat can be based, like the National Socialist evocation of the “global conspiracy of world Jewry”, on myth.
It is not that global Islamist terrorism is not a severe danger; of course it is. I am arguing rather that the language used to convey the nature of the threat is different in a country such as Spain - which has also suffered violent terrorist attacks - than it is in America. Spanish citizens know that they face a grave security threat; what we as American citizens believe is that we are potentially threatened with the end of civilisation as we know it. Of course, this makes us more willing to accept restrictions on our freedoms.
2. Create a gulag
Once you have got everyone scared, the next step is to create a prison system outside the rule of law (as Bush put it, he wanted the American detention centre at Guantánamo Bay to be situated in legal “outer space”) - where torture takes place.
At first, the people who are sent there are seen by citizens as outsiders: troublemakers, spies, “enemies of the people” or “criminals”. Initially, citizens tend to support the secret prison system; it makes them feel safer and they do not identify with the prisoners. But soon enough, civil society leaders - opposition members, labour activists, clergy and journalists - are arrested and sent there as well.
This process took place in fascist shifts or anti-democracy crackdowns ranging from Italy and Germany in the 1920s and 1930s to the Latin American coups of the 1970s and beyond. It is standard practice for closing down an open society or crushing a pro-democracy uprising.
With its jails in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, of course, Guantánamo in Cuba, where detainees are abused, and kept indefinitely without trial and without access to the due process of the law, America certainly has its gulag now. Bush and his allies in Congress recently announced they would issue no information about the secret CIA “black site” prisons throughout the world, which are used to incarcerate people who have been seized off the street.
Gulags in history tend to metastasise, becoming ever larger and more secretive, ever more deadly and formalised. We know from first-hand accounts, photographs, videos and government documents that people, innocent and guilty, have been tortured in the US-run prisons we are aware of and those we can’t investigate adequately.
But Americans still assume this system and detainee abuses involve only scary brown people with whom they don’t generally identify. It was brave of the conservative pundit William Safire to quote the anti-Nazi pastor Martin Niemöller, who had been seized as a political prisoner: “First they came for the Jews.” Most Americans don’t understand yet that the destruction of the rule of law at Guantánamo set a dangerous precedent for them, too.
By the way, the establishment of military tribunals that deny prisoners due process tends to come early on in a fascist shift. Mussolini and Stalin set up such tribunals. On April 24 1934, the Nazis, too, set up the People’s Court, which also bypassed the judicial system: prisoners were held indefinitely, often in isolation, and tortured, without being charged with offences, and were subjected to show trials. Eventually, the Special Courts became a parallel system that put pressure on the regular courts to abandon the rule of law in favour of Nazi ideology when making decisions.
3. Develop a thug caste
When leaders who seek what I call a “fascist shift” want to close down an open society, they send paramilitary groups of scary young men out to terrorise citizens. The Blackshirts roamed the Italian countryside beating up communists; the Brownshirts staged violent rallies throughout Germany. This paramilitary force is especially important in a democracy: you need citizens to fear thug violence and so you need thugs who are free from prosecution.
The years following 9/11 have proved a bonanza for America’s security contractors, with the Bush administration outsourcing areas of work that traditionally fell to the US military. In the process, contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars have been issued for security work by mercenaries at home and abroad. In Iraq, some of these contract operatives have been accused of involvement in torturing prisoners, harassing journalists and firing on Iraqi civilians. Under Order 17, issued to regulate contractors in Iraq by the one-time US administrator in Baghdad, Paul Bremer, these contractors are immune from prosecution
Yes, but that is in Iraq, you could argue; however, after Hurricane Katrina, the Department of Homeland Security hired and deployed hundreds of armed private security guards in New Orleans. The investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill interviewed one unnamed guard who reported having fired on unarmed civilians in the city. It was a natural disaster that underlay that episode - but the administration’s endless war on terror means ongoing scope for what are in effect privately contracted armies to take on crisis and emergency management at home in US cities.
Thugs in America? Groups of angry young Republican men, dressed in identical shirts and trousers, menaced poll workers counting the votes in Florida in 2000. If you are reading history, you can imagine that there can be a need for “public order” on the next election day. Say there are protests, or a threat, on the day of an election; history would not rule out the presence of a private security firm at a polling station “to restore public order”.
4. Set up an internal surveillance system
In Mussolini’s Italy, in Nazi Germany, in communist East Germany, in communist China - in every closed society - secret police spy on ordinary people and encourage neighbours to spy on neighbours. The Stasi needed to keep only a minority of East Germans under surveillance to convince a majority that they themselves were being watched.
In 2005 and 2006, when James Risen and Eric Lichtblau wrote in the New York Times about a secret state programme to wiretap citizens’ phones, read their emails and follow international financial transactions, it became clear to ordinary Americans that they, too, could be under state scrutiny.
In closed societies, this surveillance is cast as being about “national security”; the true function is to keep citizens docile and inhibit their activism and dissent.
5. Harass citizens’ groups
The fifth thing you do is related to step four - you infiltrate and harass citizens’ groups. It can be trivial: a church in Pasadena, whose minister preached that Jesus was in favour of peace, found itself being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, while churches that got Republicans out to vote, which is equally illegal under US tax law, have been left alone.
Other harassment is more serious: the American Civil Liberties Union reports that thousands of ordinary American anti-war, environmental and other groups have been infiltrated by agents: a secret Pentagon database includes more than four dozen peaceful anti-war meetings, rallies or marches by American citizens in its category of 1,500 “suspicious incidents”. The equally secret Counterintelligence Field Activity (Cifa) agency of the Department of Defense has been gathering information about domestic organisations engaged in peaceful political activities: Cifa is supposed to track “potential terrorist threats” as it watches ordinary US citizen activists. A little-noticed new law has redefined activism such as animal rights protests as “terrorism”. So the definition of “terrorist” slowly expands to include the opposition.
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release
This scares people. It is a kind of cat-and-mouse game. Nicholas D Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, the investigative reporters who wrote China Wakes: the Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power, describe pro-democracy activists in China, such as Wei Jingsheng, being arrested and released many times. In a closing or closed society there is a “list” of dissidents and opposition leaders: you are targeted in this way once you are on the list, and it is hard to get off the list.
In 2004, America’s Transportation Security Administration confirmed that it had a list of passengers who were targeted for security searches or worse if they tried to fly. People who have found themselves on the list? Two middle-aged women peace activists in San Francisco; liberal Senator Edward Kennedy; a member of Venezuela’s government - after Venezuela’s president had criticised Bush; and thousands of ordinary US citizens.
Professor Walter F Murphy is emeritus of Princeton University; he is one of the foremost constitutional scholars in the nation and author of the classic Constitutional Democracy. Murphy is also a decorated former marine, and he is not even especially politically liberal. But on March 1 this year, he was denied a boarding pass at Newark, “because I was on the Terrorist Watch list”.
“Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that,” asked the airline employee.
“I explained,” said Murphy, “that I had not so marched but had, in September 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the constitution.”
“That’ll do it,” the man said.
Anti-war marcher? Potential terrorist. Support the constitution? Potential terrorist. History shows that the categories of “enemy of the people” tend to expand ever deeper into civil life.
James Yee, a US citizen, was the Muslim chaplain at Guantánamo who was accused of mishandling classified documents. He was harassed by the US military before the charges against him were dropped. Yee has been detained and released several times. He is still of interest.
Brandon Mayfield, a US citizen and lawyer in Oregon, was mistakenly identified as a possible terrorist. His house was secretly broken into and his computer seized. Though he is innocent of the accusation against him, he is still on the list.
It is a standard practice of fascist societies that once you are on the list, you can’t get off.
7. Target key individuals
Threaten civil servants, artists and academics with job loss if they don’t toe the line. Mussolini went after the rectors of state universities who did not conform to the fascist line; so did Joseph Goebbels, who purged academics who were not pro-Nazi; so did Chile’s Augusto Pinochet; so does the Chinese communist Politburo in punishing pro-democracy students and professors.
Academe is a tinderbox of activism, so those seeking a fascist shift punish academics and students with professional loss if they do not “coordinate”, in Goebbels’ term, ideologically. Since civil servants are the sector of society most vulnerable to being fired by a given regime, they are also a group that fascists typically “coordinate” early on: the Reich Law for the Re-establishment of a Professional Civil Service was passed on April 7 1933.
Bush supporters in state legislatures in several states put pressure on regents at state universities to penalise or fire academics who have been critical of the administration. As for civil servants, the Bush administration has derailed the career of one military lawyer who spoke up for fair trials for detainees, while an administration official publicly intimidated the law firms that represent detainees pro bono by threatening to call for their major corporate clients to boycott them.
Elsewhere, a CIA contract worker who said in a closed blog that “waterboarding is torture” was stripped of the security clearance she needed in order to do her job.
Most recently, the administration purged eight US attorneys for what looks like insufficient political loyalty. When Goebbels purged the civil service in April 1933, attorneys were “coordinated” too, a step that eased the way of the increasingly brutal laws to follow.
8. Control the press
Italy in the 1920s, Germany in the 30s, East Germany in the 50s, Czechoslovakia in the 60s, the Latin American dictatorships in the 70s, China in the 80s and 90s - all dictatorships and would-be dictators target newspapers and journalists. They threaten and harass them in more open societies that they are seeking to close, and they arrest them and worse in societies that have been closed already.
The Committee to Protect Journalists says arrests of US journalists are at an all-time high: Josh Wolf (no relation), a blogger in San Francisco, has been put in jail for a year for refusing to turn over video of an anti-war demonstration; Homeland Security brought a criminal complaint against reporter Greg Palast, claiming he threatened “critical infrastructure” when he and a TV producer were filming victims of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana. Palast had written a bestseller critical of the Bush administration.
Other reporters and writers have been punished in other ways. Joseph C Wilson accused Bush, in a New York Times op-ed, of leading the country to war on the basis of a false charge that Saddam Hussein had acquired yellowcake uranium in Niger. His wife, Valerie Plame, was outed as a CIA spy - a form of retaliation that ended her career.
Prosecution and job loss are nothing, though, compared with how the US is treating journalists seeking to cover the conflict in Iraq in an unbiased way. The Committee to Protect Journalists has documented multiple accounts of the US military in Iraq firing upon or threatening to fire upon unembedded (meaning independent) reporters and camera operators from organisations ranging from al-Jazeera to the BBC. While westerners may question the accounts by al-Jazeera, they should pay attention to the accounts of reporters such as the BBC’s Kate Adie. In some cases reporters have been wounded or killed, including ITN’s Terry Lloyd in 2003. Both CBS and the Associated Press in Iraq had staff members seized by the US military and taken to violent prisons; the news organisations were unable to see the evidence against their staffers.
Over time in closing societies, real news is supplanted by fake news and false documents. Pinochet showed Chilean citizens falsified documents to back up his claim that terrorists had been about to attack the nation. The yellowcake charge, too, was based on forged papers.
You won’t have a shutdown of news in modern America - it is not possible. But you can have, as Frank Rich and Sidney Blumenthal have pointed out, a steady stream of lies polluting the news well. What you already have is a White House directing a stream of false information that is so relentless that it is increasingly hard to sort out truth from untruth. In a fascist system, it’s not the lies that count but the muddying. When citizens can’t tell real news from fake, they give up their demands for accountability bit by bit.
9. Dissent equals treason
Cast dissent as “treason” and criticism as “espionage’. Every closing society does this, just as it elaborates laws that increasingly criminalise certain kinds of speech and expand the definition of “spy” and “traitor”. When Bill Keller, the publisher of the New York Times, ran the Lichtblau/Risen stories, Bush called the Times’ leaking of classified information “disgraceful”, while Republicans in Congress called for Keller to be charged with treason, and rightwing commentators and news outlets kept up the “treason” drumbeat. Some commentators, as Conason noted, reminded readers smugly that one penalty for violating the Espionage Act is execution.
Conason is right to note how serious a threat that attack represented. It is also important to recall that the 1938 Moscow show trial accused the editor of Izvestia, Nikolai Bukharin, of treason; Bukharin was, in fact, executed. And it is important to remind Americans that when the 1917 Espionage Act was last widely invoked, during the infamous 1919 Palmer Raids, leftist activists were arrested without warrants in sweeping roundups, kept in jail for up to five months, and “beaten, starved, suffocated, tortured and threatened with death”, according to the historian Myra MacPherson. After that, dissent was muted in America for a decade.
In Stalin’s Soviet Union, dissidents were “enemies of the people”. National Socialists called those who supported Weimar democracy “November traitors”.
And here is where the circle closes: most Americans do not realise that since September of last year - when Congress wrongly, foolishly, passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 - the president has the power to call any US citizen an “enemy combatant”. He has the power to define what “enemy combatant” means. The president can also delegate to anyone he chooses in the executive branch the right to define “enemy combatant” any way he or she wants and then seize Americans accordingly.
Even if you or I are American citizens, even if we turn out to be completely innocent of what he has accused us of doing, he has the power to have us seized as we are changing planes at Newark tomorrow, or have us taken with a knock on the door; ship you or me to a navy brig; and keep you or me in isolation, possibly for months, while awaiting trial. (Prolonged isolation, as psychiatrists know, triggers psychosis in otherwise mentally healthy prisoners. That is why Stalin’s gulag had an isolation cell, like Guantánamo’s, in every satellite prison. Camp 6, the newest, most brutal facility at Guantánamo, is all isolation cells.)
We US citizens will get a trial eventually - for now. But legal rights activists at the Center for Constitutional Rights say that the Bush administration is trying increasingly aggressively to find ways to get around giving even US citizens fair trials. “Enemy combatant” is a status offence - it is not even something you have to have done. “We have absolutely moved over into a preventive detention model - you look like you could do something bad, you might do something bad, so we’re going to hold you,” says a spokeswoman of the CCR.
Most Americans surely do not get this yet. No wonder: it is hard to believe, even though it is true. In every closing society, at a certain point there are some high-profile arrests - usually of opposition leaders, clergy and journalists. Then everything goes quiet. After those arrests, there are still newspapers, courts, TV and radio, and the facades of a civil society. There just isn’t real dissent. There just isn’t freedom. If you look at history, just before those arrests is where we are now.
10. Suspend the rule of law
The John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007 gave the president new powers over the national guard. This means that in a national emergency - which the president now has enhanced powers to declare - he can send Michigan’s militia to enforce a state of emergency that he has declared in Oregon, over the objections of the state’s governor and its citizens.
Even as Americans were focused on Britney Spears’s meltdown and the question of who fathered Anna Nicole’s baby, the New York Times editorialised about this shift: “A disturbing recent phenomenon in Washington is that laws that strike to the heart of American democracy have been passed in the dead of night … Beyond actual insurrection, the president may now use military troops as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, terrorist attack or any ‘other condition’.”
Critics see this as a clear violation of the Posse Comitatus Act - which was meant to restrain the federal government from using the military for domestic law enforcement. The Democratic senator Patrick Leahy says the bill encourages a president to declare federal martial law. It also violates the very reason the founders set up our system of government as they did: having seen citizens bullied by a monarch’s soldiers, the founders were terrified of exactly this kind of concentration of militias’ power over American people in the hands of an oppressive executive or faction.
Of course, the United States is not vulnerable to the violent, total closing-down of the system that followed Mussolini’s march on Rome or Hitler’s roundup of political prisoners. Our democratic habits are too resilient, and our military and judiciary too independent, for any kind of scenario like that.
Rather, as other critics are noting, our experiment in democracy could be closed down by a process of erosion.
It is a mistake to think that early in a fascist shift you see the profile of barbed wire against the sky. In the early days, things look normal on the surface; peasants were celebrating harvest festivals in Calabria in 1922; people were shopping and going to the movies in Berlin in 1931. Early on, as WH Auden put it, the horror is always elsewhere - while someone is being tortured, children are skating, ships are sailing: “dogs go on with their doggy life … How everything turns away/ Quite leisurely from the disaster.”
As Americans turn away quite leisurely, keeping tuned to internet shopping and American Idol, the foundations of democracy are being fatally corroded. Something has changed profoundly that weakens us unprecedentedly: our democratic traditions, independent judiciary and free press do their work today in a context in which we are “at war” in a “long war” - a war without end, on a battlefield described as the globe, in a context that gives the president - without US citizens realising it yet - the power over US citizens of freedom or long solitary incarceration, on his say-so alone.
That means a hollowness has been expanding under the foundation of all these still- free-looking institutions - and this foundation can give way under certain kinds of pressure. To prevent such an outcome, we have to think about the “what ifs”.
What if, in a year and a half, there is another attack - say, God forbid, a dirty bomb? The executive can declare a state of emergency. History shows that any leader, of any party, will be tempted to maintain emergency powers after the crisis has passed. With the gutting of traditional checks and balances, we are no less endangered by a President Hillary than by a President Giuliani - because any executive will be tempted to enforce his or her will through edict rather than the arduous, uncertain process of democratic negotiation and compromise.
What if the publisher of a major US newspaper were charged with treason or espionage, as a rightwing effort seemed to threaten Keller with last year? What if he or she got 10 years in jail? What would the newspapers look like the next day? Judging from history, they would not cease publishing; but they would suddenly be very polite.
Right now, only a handful of patriots are trying to hold back the tide of tyranny for the rest of us - staff at the Center for Constitutional Rights, who faced death threats for representing the detainees yet persisted all the way to the Supreme Court; activists at the American Civil Liberties Union; and prominent conservatives trying to roll back the corrosive new laws, under the banner of a new group called the American Freedom Agenda. This small, disparate collection of people needs everybody’s help, including that of Europeans and others internationally who are willing to put pressure on the administration because they can see what a US unrestrained by real democracy at home can mean for the rest of the world.
We need to look at history and face the “what ifs”. For if we keep going down this road, the “end of America” could come for each of us in a different way, at a different moment; each of us might have a different moment when we feel forced to look back and think: that is how it was before - and this is the way it is now.
“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands … is the definition of tyranny,” wrote James Madison. We still have the choice to stop going down this road; we can stand our ground and fight for our nation, and take up the banner the founders asked us to carry.
· Naomi Wolf’s The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot will be published by Chelsea Green in September.
23 April 2009, 2:41 pmPrintable version Send to a friend Share Clip Contact us larger | smaller EmailClose Recipient’s email address Your first name Your surname Add a note (optional)
blubonnet:
You can read the book online called “The Plot to Sieze the Whitehouse”, in which General Smedley Butler intervened, preventing it from occurring. He won the Congressional Medal of Honor, ya know.
23 April 2009, 2:57 pmhttp://www.chris-floyd.com/plot/
blubonnet:
If it will pique your interest, some of the same families involved in the recent thieving of the US treasury.
23 April 2009, 2:59 pmSharon:
Oh, of course, blu. I mean, we all know that the Bushes and Cheneys are eeevile and just wanted to set up a dictatorship, steal all the money from the people who earned it, put us all in slavery, kill all the babies, etc. I’m sure you can find a YouTube video and a crackpot’s e-book for all those things, as well.
No one here advocates torture. But then, we all live in the real world, where evil people fly airplanes into our buildings, bomb our facilities, saw off the heads of American citizens and so on. Did you know there’s a YouTube video that shows very clearly George Bush sawing off Daniel Pearl’s head? It’s gotta be true! And–and there’s a website with lots of high ranking officials telling me that Dick Cheney actually runs all those big corporations in America and that he really wanted the financial system to collapse so he can make a lot more money rebuilding it! Oh, and Laura Bush? She wasn’t really just a librarian. I saw on YouTube that she gave Ted Kennedy his brain tumor! That’s right! And I can find a bunch more things like that to support my ideas! Yep, yep, yep!
Better yet, I’ll take all these ideas and accuse anyone who disagrees with me of, oh, I don’t know, condoning torture, endorsing murder and so on. And then get huffy if they call me a lunatic. Yeah!
23 April 2009, 4:08 pmDana Pico:
BurninBush wrote, concerning the field operatives who performed the harsh interrogations themselves:
Yeah, these were the guys who were our first line of defense against the terrorists — and you want to put them in jail.
You’re not even talking about President Bush or the top leadership here; you’re talking about the men who faced the actual danger.
Classy.
23 April 2009, 4:12 pmDana Pico:
The Plot to Seize the White House? Last time I checked, the presidency has been held by the duly elected men at the times specified by the Constitution. When Bill Clinton’s term was up, he left office peacefully. When George Bush’s term was up, he left office peacefully. And in both cases, the previous president turned over power to a successor he didn’t want to see win.
23 April 2009, 4:16 pmDana Pico:
Blu wrote:
To the last part, having no respect for international law, I plead guilty: don’t have any respect for international law.
However, you seem to have forgotten one small detail, Blu: we are in this war because we were attacked! When we were attacked during the Clinton Administration, the president chose to view it as a police problem, and to the credit of law enforcement, they sometimes caught the perpetrators, as in the first World Trade Center bombing. But catching the perps didn’t end the war, because it wasn’t a crime problem: it was a problem that the Islamists had declared war on us — al Qaeda did so specifically in two fatwah issued in 1996 and 1998 — and you don’t respond to war with the police.
The Islamists were emboldened, and then came the big attack of September 11th. President Bush, having much more common sense than his predecessor, recognized war for what it is, war, and he responded not with the police, but with the United States Army and the United States Marine Corps.
As for the liberal meme that President Bush’s tactics and policies have put us at greater risk rather than made us safer, I’d point out that neither al Qaeda nor any other terrorist group was able to launch a successful attack on the United States since September 11th.
President Bush’s policies worked — and now y’all want to fix them.
23 April 2009, 4:26 pmDave A.:
“Specifically, interrogation with enhanced techniques “led to the discovery of a KSM plot, the ‘Second Wave,’ ‘to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into’ a building in Los Angeles.”
I’m not about to read all of the previous comments here but I hope someone has pointed out the fact that this little tale here by Dana is pure bullshit.
KSM was captured a full year after the alleged attempted bombing of the Library Tower in Los Angeles.
If you wingnut fools are going to make shit up, you should at least try to get your dates straight. Althought I realize the facts are not real important to you.
23 April 2009, 4:35 pmDave A.:
Sorry Dana, it was the other idiot, Sharon. That certainly makes a little more sense.
You can get those facts here;
http://mediamatters.org/items/200904220036?f=h_top
“However, as Media Matters for America has noted, the Bush administration said in 2006 and 2007 that the plot was broken up in February 2002 — more than a year before Mohammed’s capture in March 2003.”
23 April 2009, 4:39 pmSharon:
Dave, once you use “facts” and “Media Matters” in the same sentence, you lose all credibility.
23 April 2009, 4:42 pmDave A.:
“In his speech, Mr. Bush said the plot had been “derailed in early 2002, when a Southeast Asian nation arrested a key Al Qaeda operative.”
You have the ‘credibility’ of a flea, Sharon. A person with even a shred of credibility would be curious, maybe even do a quick ’search’ for the facts instead of replying three minutes later blaming the ‘liberal media’. That’s weak. But typical.
Bush told the story of foiling the 2002 attack on the ‘Liberty (sic) Tower’, the “tallest building in LA”. Ignorant wingnuts now claim that this valuable information came from ‘enhanced’ interrogation of KSM who was NOT captured until March 2003. Explain that, geniuses.
Mr Bush said the plan - uncovered in 2002
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4697896.stm
Bush Gives New Details of 2002 Qaeda Plot to Attack Los Angeles
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/10/politics/10bush.html
Bush Details 2002 Plot to Attack L.A. Tower
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/25/AR2006092500402_pf.html
Bush details foiled 2002 al Qaeda attack on L.A.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/09/bush.terror/index.html
Your readers can decide who has the facts, and the ‘credibility’ on this laughable and easily debunked lie.
And oh yeah, by the way, if I really had to choose? Dallas. Hands down.
23 April 2009, 5:52 pmArt Downs:
There are times when some means are nastier than the averted means.
We can be too proper at times and trust to the good nature of evil people. Herbert Hoover was a man of demonstrated courage and integrity. His Secretary of State learned of the ongoing “Black Chamber” and its successes. They had broken the Japanese diplomatic code and given us a seeming advantage in the Washington Naval Conference that applied tonnage restrictions of capital ships. Japan made up for this by cheating.
When told of the success of the Black Chamber, the Secretary of State shut down the operation of the grounds that “Gentlemen do not read other gentlemen’s mail”. This was a noble sentiment but out of place in a rather nasty world. People in military continued their efforts in this regard.
Some of the same folks who are concerned about rather mild interrogation techniques (no rack or thumbscrews) seemed to be getting upset about surveillance techniques that should be of little concern to anyone save the terminally paranoid or terrorists.
Just what should we do? Rely upon the unlimited charm of Obama to make the jackals and hyenas lie down with the baby lambs?
23 April 2009, 6:14 pmPhoenicians in a time of Romans:
The question is illogical, because neither Sharon nor I are even remotely affiliated with any groups which would be involved in such. I would not support the indiscriminate waterboarding of all Arabs until we found the one who might be involved, but in the case of the high-value prisoners, we knew that they were involved in al Qaeda.
Dana, ,a href=”http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/04/22/abu-zubaydah-waterboarded-83-times-for-10-pieces-of-intelligence/”>read.
23 April 2009, 6:46 pmPhoenicians in a time of Romans:
Sorry. Dana, read.
23 April 2009, 6:46 pmDave A.:
Geez Sharon, why are you moderating my comment? You can handle the truth, right?
Now you’ve made start-up my old desktop.
Here’s the comment I posted at 5:52 that is ‘awaiting moderation’. If you can handle the truth, you’ll leave up.
“In his speech, Mr. Bush said the plot had been “derailed in early 2002, when a Southeast Asian nation arrested a key Al Qaeda
operative.”
You have the ‘credibility’ of a flea, Sharon. A person with even a shred of credibility would be curious, maybe even do a quick ’search’ for the facts instead of replying three minutes later blaming the ‘liberal media’. That’s weak. But typical.
Bush told the story of foiling the 2002 attack on the ‘Liberty (sic) Tower’, the “tallest building in LA”. Ignorant wingnuts now claim that this valuable information came from ‘enhanced’ interrogation of KSM who was NOT captured until March 2003. Explain that, geniuses.
Mr Bush said the plan - uncovered in 2002
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4697896.stm
Bush Gives New Details of 2002 Qaeda Plot to Attack Los Angeles
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/10/politics/10bush.html
Bush Details 2002 Plot to Attack L.A. Tower
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/25/AR2006092500402_pf.html
Bush details foiled 2002 al Qaeda attack on L.A.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/09/bush.terror/index.html
Your readers can decide who has the facts, and the ‘credibility’ on this laughable and easily debunked lie.
And oh yeah, by the way, if I really had to choose? Dallas. Hands down.
23 April 2009, 7:16 pmWas Dave A.:
Geez Sharon, why are you moderating my comment? You can handle the truth, right?
Now you’ve made start-up my old desktop.
Here’s the comment I posted at 5:52 that is ‘awaiting moderation’. If you can handle the truth, you’ll leave up.
“In his speech, Mr. Bush said the plot had been “derailed in early 2002, when a Southeast Asian nation arrested a key Al Qaeda operative.”
You have the ‘credibility’ of a flea, Sharon. A person with even a shred of credibility would be curious, maybe even do a quick ’search’ for the facts instead of replying three minutes later blaming the ‘liberal media’. That’s weak. But typical.
Bush told the story of foiling the 2002 attack on the ‘Liberty (sic) Tower’, the “tallest building in LA”. Ignorant wingnuts now claim that this valuable information came from ‘enhanced’ interrogation of KSM who was NOT captured until March 2003. Explain that, geniuses.
Mr Bush said the plan - uncovered in 2002
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4697896.stm
Bush Gives New Details of 2002 Qaeda Plot to Attack Los Angeles
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/10/politics/10bush.html
Bush Details 2002 Plot to Attack L.A. Tower
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/25/AR2006092500402_pf.html
Bush details foiled 2002 al Qaeda attack on L.A.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/09/bush.terror/index.html
Your readers can decide who has the facts, and the ‘credibility’ on this laughable and easily debunked lie.
And oh yeah, by the way, if I really had to choose? Dallas. Hands down.
23 April 2009, 7:18 pmDana Pico:
Dava A asked:
The moderation queue on this site is set by me, not by Sharon, although Sharon has the access to release any comment from moderation. There are a lot of words and phrases which will trigger the moderation queue, but they are all major spam-words, like insurance, poker, and sexual terms; even the first four letters of “analysis” will trigger the moderation queue.
I don’t like having to set it that way, but if you’ve ever run a blog, you’d appreciate why it has to be done; if it were not, the whole site would be filled with that junk.
Normally, I’m the one who releases comments in moderation, though John Hitchcock does that as well. In the four years this site has operated, I’ve deleted exactly two non-spam comments, and edited one for content when a commenter tried to use the site to “out” a supposedly closeted homosexual politician. (A few other comments have been edited for readibility, such as inserting paragraph breaks where needed in very long run-on comments.)
I don’t spend every waking moment monitoring the site, so yes, sometimes comments which hit the moderation queue can remain stuck there for a while.
23 April 2009, 7:41 pmJohn Hitchcock:
For the record, many sites have automatic spam and moderation filters. And multiple links can trigger the filters due to the fact many spammers throw multiple links.
23 April 2009, 7:42 pmEric:
since Pho likes to post the same question over and over, I came up with one of my own for him:
So far, he’s not been willing to answer this directly. I wonder why?
23 April 2009, 7:45 pmDave A.:
Thanks for the explanation, Dana.
Enjoy your evening.
23 April 2009, 8:22 pmSharon:
Geez, a woman can’t go make a living and enjoy some family time without being accused of censorship.
For the record, Was Dave A, I don’t usually spend time monitoring the comments cue. If I happen to be writing something and see it, then I’ll release comments that are stuck. I have deleted obvious spam comments, but I’ve never deleted a comment here based on disagreement with someone’s opinion. I leave that sort of thing to leftwing sites.
And oh yeah, by the way, if I really had to choose? Dallas. Hands down.
Not really sure why you’d choose Dallas, but I’m not really fond of that city, either, and don’t go there any more often than necessary.
23 April 2009, 8:42 pmPhoenicians in a time of Romans:
A terrorist attack was prevented, and you are hyping on the fact that we don’t know which individual person’s life was saved.
From Ali Soufan:
23 April 2009, 9:28 pmSharon:
And the rebuttal:
More at the link, which I will come back with should Pho decide to continue this line of argument.
23 April 2009, 9:49 pmArt Downs:
The interrogation of captured military personnel can provide some bits of useful information. The top Luftwaffe interrogator was a master of the art. He did not use pain and even took the prisoners out for a restaurant meal before they were sent to a prison camp. There were no great secrets revealed, since tactical information grows stale rather rapidly. Those with access to secrets such as ULTRA were kept far away form combat but there were a few blunders.
The treatment of military personnel in the Pacific Theater was another matter. Some were even cannibalized and used for medical experiments. This was the sort of misbehavior that caused necks to be stretched.
Torture was used more to force prisoners to utter lies than to get the truth.
Yet consider the thugs we are facing. They seem to favor the softest of civilian targets and are often not found in uniform. The pilots who executed the attack on Pearl Harbor wore uniforms and flew clearly marked military aircraft. The survivors were not treated as war criminals.
There is a difference.
24 April 2009, 12:07 amblubonnet:
Sharon, so why did you delete the information I brought from Naomi Wolfe, after her studying fascist regimes down through history, regarding the 10 steps that make for fascism?
24 April 2009, 12:40 amblubonnet:
ooops, I made a mistake. Thank you for allowing it.
24 April 2009, 12:42 amblubonnet:
Me: You all supporting torture have abandoned whatever moral parameters you had prior. You have no respect for the laws of this country or the international law.
Dana: To the last part, having no respect for international law, I plead guilty: don’t have any respect for international law.
However, you seem to have forgotten one small detail, Blu: we are in this war because we were attacked! When we were attacked during the Clinton Administration, the president chose to view it as a police problem, and to the credit of law enforcement, they sometimes caught the perpetrators, as in the first World Trade Center bombing. But catching the perps didn’t end the war, because it wasn’t a crime problem: it was a problem that the Islamists had declared war on us — al Qaeda did so specifically in two fatwah issued in 1996 and 1998 — and you don’t respond to war with the police.
Well, okay, Dana, it was truly a frightening and powerful event, September 11, 2001, and amazing at that. After all, NORAD, which functioned perfectly scores of times the entire year prior to that event, suddenly didn’t, several times, even,not working, all in one day, and it is also amazingly powerful that they were not very far off. It should have only taken them minutes. That is frightening. I can understand your wanting everything to change now, even if it means obliterating the Bill of Rights, and the rights to a lawyer for the MAYBE terrorists, and torturing the MAYBE terrorists too. It is so frightening, and the terrorists have proven to be so powerful that even though WTC7 was not even hit by a plane, it (3rd tower) after having caught some of the flames which fell even went down. Let’s take a peek, a very short clip of WTC7 going down. It is always mind-blowing to see, and in fact, it may even confirm once again, how correct you are that things are and should be different now:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3664073116607499063
24 April 2009, 2:40 amblubonnet:
Dana Pico:
The Plot to Seize the White House? Last time I checked, the presidency has been held by the duly elected men at the times specified by the Constitution. When Bill Clinton’s term was up, he left office peacefully. When George Bush’s term was up, he left office peacefully. And in both cases, the previous president turned over power to a successor he didn’t want to see win.
Dana, that took place decades ago, the “Plot to Sieze the Whitehouse”. It is quite fascinating. I have thought well of you peviously, in your willingness to read books that were not of your particular political persuasion, even though, I’ve disagreed with you on some points regarding them. Consider looking at it, if only briefly.
24 April 2009, 2:51 amblubonnet:
DANA, This faction is the one I’m talking about, which William O. Douglas speaks of, and General Smedley Butler intervened, preventing it. It’s true:
William Dodd, former US Ambassador to Germany, 1938, told a reporter:
Fascism is on the march today in America. Millionaires are marching to the tune. It will come in this country unless a strong defense is set up by all liberal and progressive forces… A clique of U.S. industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to supplant our democratic government, and is working closely with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy. Aboard ship a prominent executive of one of America’s largest financial corporations told me point blank that if the progressive trend of the Roosevelt administration continued, he would be ready to take definite action to bring fascism to America.
24 April 2009, 3:49 amPhoenician in a time of Romans:
Torture was used more to force prisoners to utter lies than to get the truth.
Yet consider the thugs we are facing.
Ah. So you acknowledge that this crap about getting information is, indeed, crap. It’s all about punishing Al Qaeda members, or people who are accused of being Al Qaeda members, or taxi drivers with the same coloured skin as Al Qaeda members. It’s punishment.
Art, what does the Eight Amendment say?
24 April 2009, 4:57 amPhoenician in a time of Romans:
Sharon, I have absolutely no idea what you’re trying to force through the walnut you consider a frontal cortex.
let me see… “Mr. Soufan says that “I questioned him from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August.” As we have seen, something like harsh techniques were already in place. But what happened in July? This high value target of so much attention was left to rock out to the Red Hot Chili Peppers while shivering in his underwear? Probably not.”
You may not have noticed, but July comes before August. Feel free to spell out whatever is in your noggin.
Here’s the salient bit again:
24 April 2009, 5:02 amSharon:
Again, from the same piece:
I’ll make it simple for you, Pho, since reading isn’t your strong point: Soufan either has a convenient memory or he’s lying. But you’ll accept anything that discredits the use of these techniques, so why do I bother?
Blu,
24 April 2009, 10:44 amWhy don’t you shut your piehole, since your paranoia forces you to accuse everybody–the President, Republicans, me–of trying to shut you down? BTW, “shut your piehole” isn’t stifling your free speech. You’ve just shown such contempt for truth that I can’t bother with niceness anymore. If only I’d deleted your noxious comments.
blubonnet:
Okay, Sharon, why do you think NORAD didn’t work several times in a row, on 9-11-01? Tell me what you think of the short clip I provided several posts up from here? I’d like your explanation.
24 April 2009, 2:44 pmblubonnet:
Let’s hear what this former intelligence officer has to say:
Op-Ed Contributor
My Tortured Decision
ALI SOUFAN
Ali Soufan was an F.B.I. supervisory special agent from 1997 to 2005.
Published: April 22, 2009
FOR seven years I have remained silent about the false claims magnifying the effectiveness of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding. I have spoken only in closed government hearings, as these matters were classified. But the release last week of four Justice Department memos on interrogations allows me to shed light on the story, and on some of the lessons to be learned.
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Wesley Bedrosian
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Editorial: In the Spirit of Openness (April 23, 2009)
Times Topics: Abu ZubaydahOne of the most striking parts of the memos is the false premises on which they are based. The first, dated August 2002, grants authorization to use harsh interrogation techniques on a high-ranking terrorist, Abu Zubaydah, on the grounds that previous methods hadn’t been working. The next three memos cite the successes of those methods as a justification for their continued use.
It is inaccurate, however, to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative. Along with another F.B.I. agent, and with several C.I.A. officers present, I questioned him from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August. Under traditional interrogation methods, he provided us with important actionable intelligence.
We discovered, for example, that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Abu Zubaydah also told us about Jose Padilla, the so-called dirty bomber. This experience fit what I had found throughout my counterterrorism career: traditional interrogation techniques are successful in identifying operatives, uncovering plots and saving lives.
There was no actionable intelligence gained from using enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah that wasn’t, or couldn’t have been, gained from regular tactics. In addition, I saw that using these alternative methods on other terrorists backfired on more than a few occasions — all of which are still classified. The short sightedness behind the use of these techniques ignored the unreliability of the methods, the nature of the threat, the mentality and modus operandi of the terrorists, and due process.
Defenders of these techniques have claimed that they got Abu Zubaydah to give up information leading to the capture of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a top aide to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and Mr. Padilla. This is false. The information that led to Mr. Shibh’s capture came primarily from a different terrorist operative who was interviewed using traditional methods. As for Mr. Padilla, the dates just don’t add up: the harsh techniques were approved in the memo of August 2002, Mr. Padilla had been arrested that May.
One of the worst consequences of the use of these harsh techniques was that it reintroduced the so-called Chinese wall between the C.I.A. and F.B.I., similar to the communications obstacles that prevented us from working together to stop the 9/11 attacks. Because the bureau would not employ these problematic techniques, our agents who knew the most about the terrorists could have no part in the investigation. An F.B.I. colleague of mine who knew more about Khalid Shaikh Mohammed than anyone in the government was not allowed to speak to him.
It was the right decision to release these memos, as we need the truth to come out. This should not be a partisan matter, because it is in our national security interest to regain our position as the world’s foremost defenders of human rights. Just as important, releasing these memos enables us to begin the tricky process of finally bringing these terrorists to justice.
The debate after the release of these memos has centered on whether C.I.A. officials should be prosecuted for their role in harsh interrogation techniques. That would be a mistake. Almost all the agency officials I worked with on these issues were good people who felt as I did about the use of enhanced techniques: it is un-American, ineffective and harmful to our national security.
Fortunately for me, after I objected to the enhanced techniques, the message came through from Pat D’Amuro, an F.B.I. assistant director, that “we don’t do that,” and I was pulled out of the interrogations by the F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller (this was documented in the report released last year by the Justice Department’s inspector general).
My C.I.A. colleagues who balked at the techniques, on the other hand, were instructed to continue. (It’s worth noting that when reading between the lines of the newly released memos, it seems clear that it was contractors, not C.I.A. officers, who requested the use of these techniques.)
As we move forward, it’s important to not allow the torture issue to harm the reputation, and thus the effectiveness, of the C.I.A. The agency is essential to our national security. We must ensure that the mistakes behind the use of these techniques are never repeated. We’re making a good start: President Obama has limited interrogation techniques to the guidelines set in the Army Field Manual, and Leon Panetta, the C.I.A. director, says he has banned the use of contractors and secret overseas prisons for terrorism suspects (the so-called black sites). Just as important, we need to ensure that no new mistakes are made in the process of moving forward — a real danger right now.
Ali Soufan was an F.B.I. supervisory special agent from 1997 to 2005.
24 April 2009, 3:00 pmElizabeth Miller:
Sharon,
I think you might be interested in this link about the law and torture:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/01/18/prosecutions/index.html
24 April 2009, 3:37 pmSharon:
Blu,
I think it is possible for things to malfunction without it being a conspiracy. Even if they’ve never malfunctioned before.
And you just wasted a ton of space pasting in the same article Pho and I were discussing above.
Elizabeth,
Glenn “sockpuppet” Greenwald has no authority, imo. He’s dishonest and, just plain wrong most of the time.
24 April 2009, 8:45 pmblubonnet:
Well, he is not the source, although I disagree with you on his credibility, he’s great. He actually investigates and does legal analysis.
Also, okay, if by chance your assumption is plausible regarding the multiple failures all in one day of NORAD, what is your response to the brief video of WTC7 collapse, with no planes having hit it? What is your explanation? Please look at the clip and explain.
Also, any physicist will tell you that metal only melts at a certain very high temperature, of which burning jet fuel cannot reach. There are numerous reports of firefighters and first responders weeks after the horrific event stating the molten metal flowing down in the basement. How would you explain that? That was in the first two towers’ rubble. If you want the video of the firefighters stating it, I could find it. Please explain.
24 April 2009, 9:27 pmblubonnet:
And, I forgot to mention the very important point that the source for the information was the FBI supervisory special agent Ali Soufan not Greenwald.
24 April 2009, 9:29 pmSharon:
Blu, I didn’t say the story you cut and pasted was from Glenn “Sockpuppet” Greenwald. I said the story you cut and pasted was already under discussion, and I had, in fact, presented a link rebutting Soufan’s argument (see here).
Secondly, please stop with your 9/11 insane conspiracies, blu. We’ve had this discussion for 3 years and you have the same crap every thread. You’ve changed no minds and irritated every person who participates in any discussion here. Every argument you present has already been rebutted quite effectively by others. But just like those who believe in Bigfoot, UFOs, the grassy knoll, and the Illuminati, you won’t accept anything other than your disgusting theory that our own government killed American citizens as part of some bizarre plot. So, please, can it. Don’t you ever discuss anything but how much you hate our government?
24 April 2009, 10:59 pmblubonnet:
No, Sharon, that is not an answer to my question. What is your response to the clip of WTC7 collapse. If you feel I’m wrong, tell me why the short clip I posted up a ways is believable, that some fire which supposedly made its way over to WTC7, made such a collapse possible, as is seen? Surely, if you are so right, explain it. And for the record, I don’t believe in Bigfoot or the UFO abduction stories. You aren’t afraid to look at a short clip, are you?
24 April 2009, 11:41 pmblubonnet:
And, I’m not saying our government did it, I’m saying along with hundreds of physicists, structural engineers, military intelligence officials, former CIA officials, former FBI officials, that the 911 Commission was a sham, a cover-up. Tell me why the evidence I bring should be discounted.
24 April 2009, 11:43 pmblubonnet:
One more thing, Sharon, 911 is the basis for most everything we talk about, from the war, to torture, to surveillance, and more. It all springs from that. By the way, much of that which we hang on 911 started before 911 by Bushco.
24 April 2009, 11:49 pmSharon:
Blu, I gave you a link to the single best source to debunk all that 9/11 crap. As I said, you want to believe that it was a conspiracy and facts won’t get in your way.
25 April 2009, 12:09 amblubonnet:
Popular Mechanics has been easily debunked already by numerous physicists. I’m not debating with them. I’m debating with you. Answer the question. How can you explain the collapse of WTC7? It’s on the clip. I’m not letting up.
25 April 2009, 12:21 amThomas Tallis:
here is a link to a pdf that explains the collapse of WTC 7 pretty clearly.
http://wtc.nist.gov/progress_report_june04/appendixl.pdf
it won’t persuade you, because it’s in the nature of conspiracy theory to describe refutations of itself as part of the broader conspiracy. there are analogous versions of this same effect across religion and politics. they are as pernicious there as they are here.
25 April 2009, 5:26 amThomas Tallis:
(Sharon’s anti-Greenwald link mainly noteworthy for the comic & obsessive “lol the gays! the gays! Andrew Sullivan is gay! Glenn Greenwald is teh gay!” of its comments section)
25 April 2009, 5:30 amJohnC.:
Sharon: Let them believe what they want to believe. They’re stuck on stupid.
25 April 2009, 9:15 amblubonnet:
I could find the link, if you want. It just so happens that a fellow from NIST has acknowledged, and stated, that NIST has been used as a political operative. Anyone with any common sense could see the absurdity of the government/911 Commission “explanations” if you see the case against them, unless denial overshadows one’s honest objectivity.
Why is it that the Hearst owned Popular Mechanics (see other investments of Hearst) which has been proven wrong, was the one attempting to “discount” the evidence of the Truth movement? Why not Popular Science magazine? As I’ve done so many times before, I’ll leave my favorite link/site of the dozens out there on the factual presentations from highly credible professionals of every relevant sort, including Republican civillian government officials in the intelligence community, as well as military personnel. It really is time that we have to think the unthinkable.
http://patriotsquestion911.com
25 April 2009, 8:40 pmJohn Hitchcock:
*yawn*
25 April 2009, 9:02 pmSharon:
Thomas,
Which link to explain Glenn Greenwald as a lying sockpuppet are you referring to? I suppose if you got nothin’ then you go trolling the comments and complain that someone made fun of Greenwald for lying while living with his lover(s). That’s all you’ve got? You can’t refute that Greenwald was caught sockpuppeting multiple times?
Blu,
25 April 2009, 10:19 pmAs I said, you cannot be persuaded by truth. You’d rather believe in conspiracies and complain that the rest of us aren’t ready to face “the truth.” That’s fine for you. But nobody wants to see that crap anymore.
blubonnet:
You’re right I guess, nobody wants to actually see.
26 April 2009, 3:36 pmblubonnet:
But it is proven credible. So, calling it c___ is inappropriate, if you haven’t seen it.
26 April 2009, 3:37 pmSharon:
Blu, it’s crap. It’s been proven crap. It’s not proven credible, unless your idea of credibility is lunatics bent on blaming the government for some nebulous conspiracy that even YOU can’t explain.
26 April 2009, 10:06 pm