Ridge: Waterboarding Was “Wrong”; America Shouldn’t Have Done It
Looks like Tom Ridge has joined the ranks of terrorist-sympathizers.
In a throwaway comment in this interview with ABC News earlier today, the former homeland security chief said he thought the decision to waterboard was “wrong.” While Ridge also strongly took issue with Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to probe rogue CIA interrogators, Ridge’s declaration about waterboarding is significant, and here’s why:
Ridge’s claim comes after all the proof we’ve supposedly seen that waterboarding works.
Asked on ABC for a reaction to Dick Cheney’s claim yesterday that it was “outrageous” for Obama’s Justice Department to probe the rogue interrogators, Ridge said this:
I think he’s right. Pure and simple. I think the whole question of water boarding, I’ve said it a long time ago, I think that was wrong. It wasn’t the appropriate way for America to be conducting itself. Some of the other techniques don’t bother me as much.
But what really bothers me is that attorney general now after water boarding was prohibited and the CIA and other interrogators have made obvious changes in how they interrogate to go back and investigate, criminally investigate what these men were asked to do believing at the time that they were in power to do it and that it was consistent with the rule of law. I think it’s wrong, it’s chilling and it’s inappropriate.
No question, that’s a strong denunciation of Holder’s decision. But it’s at least as newsworthy — and perhaps more so, since Ridge was a Bushie — that he also denounced waterboarding as morally wrong and not “the appropriate way for America to be conducting itself.”
Here’s why: Ridge is implictly saying that the current debate over whether waterboarding “works” is a sideshow — one that should have no impact on whether America should have done it. This position routinely gets torture opponents branded as terrorist sympathizers. Yet here’s the top Bush/Cheney homeland security official saying the same thing.
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That IS a throwaway. Lest your readers miss the most important part of the interview – the bit they were so incensed by not long ago:
“Tom Ridge, speaking for the first time about accusations made in his new book, says he did not mean to suggest that other top Bush administration officials were playing politics with the nation’s security before the 2004 presidential election…Ridge says he did not mean to suggest he was pressured to raise the threat level, and he is not accusing anyone of trying to boost Bush in the polls. “I was never pressured,” Ridge said.”
John McCain said the same thing. How can they talk out of both sides of their mouths like that? “Yeah it’s wrong, but we shouldn’t do anything about the fact that we did it.”
Makes loads of sense, just like everything else coming out of the right.
Looks like Ridge is part of the blame America first crowd.
What an un-American.
Both him and McCain have joined the blame-America express.
Blame them but don’t prosecute.
Fooking brilliant. Let’s admit it was wrong but no accountability for doing what was admittedly wrong.
Right now, as we write, Obama has sanctioned predator drone attacks that sometimes kill innocent people in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Right now the Army Field Manual permits sleep deprivation of detainees. Right now detainees in Bagram may be denied their rights. There may come a day when a future President/attorney general will deem it appropriate to prosecute the current administration for such actions.
It makes no sense at all for the US to go prosecuting itself for the decisions it made – in good faith – at that time.
“It seems irrational and incomprehensible to me,” Olson told me this week. “They have started something they can’t stop, now that it’s out. And what conceivable good can it do?”
“If it’s prosecutable because we waterboarded somebody or deprived him of sleep, what about sending a drone to blow him up without a trial or a hearing?” Olson asked. “What if the person we blew up was carrying a three-year old child? We know things like that have happened. We know innocent people have been killed. We know this administration has done it. Are they going to be prosecuted for that?”
Hrmm…
1) Lying about getting a ********.
2) Breaking the Geneva Convention and the UN Convention laws against torture.
Which would be worth pursuing?
A) 1
B) 2
C) 1 + 2
D) None of the above.
sbj. Nobody’s going to prosecute themselves. Cheney and the network of lawbreakers he created doesn’t represent me in any way. He might think in his mind he’s done a great service buy in my mind, he’s destroyed a big part of what this country stands for. Going after Cheney to me is in no way going after ourselves.
sbj
I just saw the interview and the characterization you just quoted is bullsh*t. He backpeddled no doubt but only slightly. He said “the process worked” because they didn’t go up but he wasn’t giving some kind of full fledged walk back like he was “never pressured”. Hell its in the book anyway.
A modest proposal.
Why not learn from South Africa; by holding Truth & Reconciliation hearings. Let all those who testify fully, and truthfully, be pardoned, but their law breaking deeds will be fully exposed, and condemned.
After they have confessed to their law breaking deeds, and fully cooperated, including testifying as to who gave the orders, then we should pardon all those CIA people involved, but those who engaged in torture, or gave the orders to torture, must be banned for life, from ever holding an other government position, or any position with any law enforcement agency, of an any type, including security positions of any type, either public or private.
We can not allow those who were willing to just follow orders, or go beyond them, when it came to torturing people, or ordering the torture of people, to ever be in a position to do so again.
I am ready to settle for a full revealing of the truth, and the removal of the bad apples. That is the most important thing. Take politics or the claims of political vendettas, out of the equation. That way you take away Dick Cheney’s most potent spin weapon.
Truth & Reconciliation is the best way to accomplish that.
“when a future President/attorney general will deem it appropriate to prosecute the current administration for such actions.”
If he or she does deem it appropriate, then so what? Why is that relevant to the current discussion?
@sg: I quoted USA Today – take it up with them:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-08-30-tom-ridge_N.htm?csp=34
The headline? “Ridge backpedals on pressure to raise terror alert level”
Here’s what The NY Times said when Ridge first made the outrageous claim: “Mr. Ridge provides no evidence that politics motivated the discussion. Until now, he has denied politics played a role in threat levels. Asked by Eric Lichtblau of The New York Times if politics ever influenced decisions on threat warnings, he volunteered to take a lie-detector test. “Wire me up,” Mr. Ridge said, according to Mr. Lichtblau’s book, “Bush’s Law.” “Not a chance. Politics played no part.”
Take it up with them.
sbj – wow, are you gullible.
Hardly a soul was fooled by those raised threat levels right on the cusp of the ‘04 election.
It’s actually funny that you choose to believe the Bush Administration when about 80% of the country knows better.
@tena: Laughable. I’m sure you won’t complain when Obama and Biden are prosecuted by a future Republican atty gen or the ICC for unmanned predator murders of children? C’mon now!
@Tena: It doesn’t matter what Ridge says, the USA Today, Eric Lichtblau, or The NY Times?
sbj. What do unmanned predator drone deaths have to do with torture and breaking UN laws and the Geneva convention?
@mike:
““If it’s prosecutable because we waterboarded somebody or deprived him of sleep, what about sending a drone to blow him up without a trial or a hearing?” Olson asked. “What if the person we blew up was carrying a three-year old child? We know things like that have happened. We know innocent people have been killed. We know this administration has done it. Are they going to be prosecuted for that?”
“And finally, when everyone is finished investigating, what’s to stop the next president from holding Obama administration officials “accountable” for some “controversial” action?”
It really can’t be put any better than that – sorry if you don’t understand.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Ted-Olson-Torture-probes-will-never-end-43594177.html
“@tena: Laughable. I’m sure you won’t complain when Obama and Biden are prosecuted by a future Republican atty gen or the ICC for unmanned predator murders of children? C’mon now!”
Boo, I’ll worry about that when we get there. I’m not losing sleep over speculation of the most speculative sort.
Greg:
This position routinely gets torture opponents branded as terrorist sympathizers.
By who? Perhaps on some insignifacnt message boards or blogs, but has Cheney, Bush, or any of their defenders in Congress branded someone opposed to, say, waterboarding on moral grounds, a terrorist sympathizer?
@sbj,
You couldn’t be more mistaken. If Obama gets caught approving torture, I want him prosecuted! I voted for Obama and proudly identify myself as a progressive. But I”m already losing patience with BO. We should be out of Iraq,and not protecting the Afghans and wasting lives and treasure in that useless conflict. This is simply Vietnam redux.
No sbj…that’s one of the main differences between the left and the right…we are not blind partisans who support our elected people even when they are wrong!
Mr, Sargent:
To be fair, maybe you don’t read the Saturday Post,or your own Weekend Thread commesnts, so, for your convenience:
” Any comment on this article from your own newspaper today?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/28/AR2009082803874.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2009082804015
The lede:
“How a Detainee Became An Asset
Sept. 11 Plotter Cooperated After Waterboarding
By Peter Finn, Joby Warrick and Julie Tate
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, August 29, 2009″
some highlights:
“These scenes provide previously unpublicized details about the transformation of the man known to U.S. officials as KSM from an avowed and truculent enemy of the United States into what the CIA called its “preeminent source” on al-Qaeda. This reversal occurred after Mohammed was subjected to simulated drowning and prolonged sleep deprivation, among other harsh interrogation techniques”
and:
“ad_icon
“KSM, an accomplished resistor, provided only a few intelligence reports prior to the use of the waterboard, and analysis of that information revealed that much of it was outdated, inaccurate or incomplete,” according to newly unclassified portions of a 2004 report by the CIA’s then-inspector general released Monday by the Justice Department.”
and:
“John L. Helgerson, the former CIA inspector general who investigated the agency’s detention and interrogation program, said his work did not put him in “a position to reach definitive conclusions about the effectiveness of particular interrogation methods….
…Certain of the techniques seemed to have little effect, whereas waterboarding and sleep deprivation were the two most powerful techniques and elicited a lot of information,” he said in an interview.”
Wow. Like just wow.
Your own company’s flagship publication just stuck it in your butt and broke it off!
How personally and professionally embarrasing this must be for you.
You obviously didn’t get the memo, or if you did, you didn;t read it, or if you did read it, you chose not to believe it.
And as a result, you get to stand before your fellow Post journalists with egg all over your face.
You know what this means, right?
You’ll NEVER get off the “kook blog” assignment and into a REAL reporter’s job NOW, sonny.
You might as well spruce up your resume, because when the layoffs are announced, you;re going to be a prime target.
Sucks to be YOU, moonbat.”
@tean: You also don’t appear to be losing any sleep over all of the abuses that Obama currently sanctions, including predator drone attacks, in a country with which we are not at war, that blow up suspects without a trial or a hearing, including known innocent civilians. Hurrah for your consistency.
“@Tena: It doesn’t matter what Ridge says, the USA Today, Eric Lichtblau, or The NY Times?”
Yes it matters what Ridge says – he said it was WRONG. Then he tried to say we shouldn’t do anything about it even though it was wrong. Hell I already posted that – and remarked on it. He’s talking out of both sides of his mouth and it’s his opinion that we shouldn’t do anything.
As for the media = do you really need to ask? Really?
sbj – stay on the subject. Obama and his actions are not under scrutiny.
You just keep trying to pull the whole discussion over to Obama as if whatever he does makes it right or wrong and it doesn’t.
Right is right, sbj. Wrong is wrong. Whatever happens happens vis-a-vis Obama’s actions. WE aren’t there – nobody is claiming Obama authorized anything illegal.
Cheney DID.
@rukidding: “No sbj…that’s one of the main differences between the left and the right…we are not blind partisans who support our elected people even when they are wrong!”
Are you kidding? Maybe not you, but I can’t even get one of these wingnuts to condemn unmanned predator killings of innocent civilians in Pakistan.
BTW, do you approve of sleep deprivation – which is currently permitted by the Army Field Manual? Or of rendition, which continues under the current admin? If so, I applaud your consistency and my general comments which attack the monolithic disingenuous and inconsistent left do not apply to you.
Tena:
“Right is right, sbj. Wrong is wrong. Whatever happens happens vis-a-vis Obama’s actions. WE aren’t there – nobody is claiming Obama authorized anything illegal.
Cheney DID”
Showing once again the utterly abysmal state of your mis-edumacation in elementary Civics.
What Constitutional Powers and Duties does the Vice-President have when there is a sitting President, Tena?
He presides over the Senate and he casts the deciding vote in case of a tie.
Other than that, he is totally out of the Chain of Command of the Executive Branch.
Cheney was not Constitutionally empowered to “authorize” ANYTHING.
(God grant that if I’m ever indicted, I do not by some ghastly mistake hire you to defend me…it would be tantamount to a one-way express ticket to the Death Chamber at the “Man Pound”).
“Are you kidding? Maybe not you, but I can’t even get one of these wingnuts to condemn unmanned predator killings of innocent civilians in Pakistan.”
For the love of god – do you not know the difference between what is legal and what is illegal?
That’s what we’re talking about. Cheney violated the law.
So far as I know, unmanned drones don’t violate any laws, national or international. I may not like it and I don’t necessarily, but dude, I hate the death penalty and Texas executes people every 5 seconds. It may be immoral from my standpoint, but it isn’t illegal and waterboarding IS.
The CIA came clean and admitted that they were too incompetent to spy on Al Qaeda. Here is where they admitted that:
“These scenes provide previously unpublicized details about the transformation of the man known to U.S. officials as KSM from an avowed and truculent enemy of the United States into what the CIA called its “preeminent source” on al-Qaeda. This reversal occurred after Mohammed was subjected to simulated drowning and prolonged sleep deprivation, among other harsh interrogation techniques”
If a guy, who they have had in custody for years, and who they have tortured, and he still did not lead them to Bin Laden, became their “preeminent source on Al-Qaeda”, then that is a stark admission by the CIA, that other than torturing prisoners, they had absolutely no field assets worth a damn.
Dick Cheney admits as much, when he keeps claiming that torture was the only way to protect the country.
Think about that folks; All the hundreds of billions we spend each year on our spying and national security operations, and both Dick Cheney and the CIA reveal that none of them were worth a damn, and our only line of defense was the use of Torture.
How damning is that, coming from the regime that kept bragging about how strong they were on national security!
Here’s what someone with a pair need to do with Cheney on his next interview. Read the following from the UN ban on torture.
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/cat.htm
Article 2
…
2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political in stability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
…
Article 4
1. Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply to an attempt to commit torture and to an act by any person which constitutes complicity or participation in torture. 2. Each State Party shall make these offences punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account their grave nature.
Ask Cheney if he feels what he approved met this definition of torture.
If he says no, ask him why this doesn’t apply to him?
Does he think we should withdraw from this convention?
had to repost, my links got all funny.
Here’s what someone with a pair need to do with Cheney on his next interview. Read the following from the UN ban on torture.
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/cat.htm
Article 2
…
2. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political in stability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
…
Article 4
1. Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply to an attempt to commit torture and to an act by any person which constitutes complicity or participation in torture. 2. Each State Party shall make these offences punishable by appropriate penalties which take into account their grave nature.
Ask Cheney if he feels what he approved met this definition of torture.
If he says no, ask him why this doesn’t apply to him?
Does he think we should withdraw from this convention?
blaa…forget it.
mike from Arlington – And that’s exactly what Reagan was talking about when he reaffirmed our commitment to the ban on torture.
I can’t believe all the little wingers have abandoned the ideals of their Saint Reagan in favor of Darth Cheney.
This was supposed to be the first part to read to Cheney.
Article 1
1. For the purposes of this Convention, the term “torture” means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
hey sbj. Should we remove ourselves from the UN ban on torture since we can’t follow it?
Any of you wingers for that part.
Should we, according to you, remove ourselves from this ban on torture?
@tena: “So far as I know, unmanned drones don’t violate any laws, national or international.”
“This is not only a violation of the international laws of war,” he said. “It’s bad policy.” The laws of war allow individuals who are engaged in hostilities to be targeted in an armed conflict but strictly prohibit actions against those not engaged. “Even when you’re attacking a legitimate military objective, you cannot cause civilian casualties that exceed the value of a legitimate military attack,” Rona said.”
========
“David Kilcullen, the counterinsurgency expert who designed Gen. Petraeus’s Iraqi surge, recently told the House Armed Services Committee, “We need to call off the drones.”…Kilcullen explained:
“Since 2006, we’ve killed 14 senior Al Qaeda leaders using drone strikes; in the same time period, we’ve killed 700 Pakistani civilians in the same area. The drone strikes are highly unpopular. They are deeply aggravating to the population. And they’ve given rise to a feeling of anger that coalesces the population around the extremists and leads to spikes of extremism. … The current path that we are on is leading us to loss of Pakistani government control over its own population.”
“In addition to the 700 innocent Pakistani civilians killed, the UN estimates drone strikes have displaced hundreds of thousands more people. One can only imagine the inordinate amount of chaos and devastation caused by more drone strikes, as they become a recruiting tool for Islamic militants spurred into action against the Pakistani government and U.S. interests.”
http://www.openleft.com/diary/13191/the-perils-of-predator-drones-in-pakistan
Watching sbj do everything he can to justify and spin all at the same time is a true revelation of his character
“Should we remove ourselves from the UN ban on torture?”
No.
All the wingers here can be on notice right now – I wouldn’t let you hire me. I wouldn’t take any of you as clients, so you don’t have to worry about that, any of you.
Mr. Sargent:
Are you under some kind of Gag Order not to address the WaPo article which directly contradicted your loud and long assertions?
Just nod your head if that’s the case…
sbj,
Did Cheney violate this?
Article 1
1. For the purposes of this Convention, the term “torture” means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
“# sbj | August 31st, 2009 at 01:14 pm
“Should we remove ourselves from the UN ban on torture?”
No.”
Then don’t you think we should at least try and follow it?
We met Article 1’s criteria.
I heard better excuses for cruelty out of my client who beat his grandfather to death with the cast on his arm.
Y’all don’t even come close to an excuse in comparison.
Tena:
“All the wingers here can be on notice right now – I wouldn’t let you hire me. I wouldn’t take any of you as clients, so you don’t have to worry about that, any of you”
Democrats…be afraid, be VERY afraid! Tena, who can’t answer the simplest question about the Constitutional Powers of the Vice-President, will be there to defend you.
Say…those are some fly Nikes, and appear to be in my size.
You mind if I have them after you’re gone?
Bilgeman,
Everyone is aware that was propaganda set up for the Sunday talk shows. Cheney has done it in the past, he’s doing it now. Nothing on there was confirmed at all.
Honestly, doesn’t sitting down having tea and crumpets while KSM gives How to be a Terrorist 101 classes sound a bit ridiculous?
“My client who beat his grandfather to death with the cast on his arm.”
Yeech! Are you offering this as some sort of defense of your character?
sbj – Nope – I’m offering it as evidence of your character.
Reread that – I just said y’all are worse than he was.
mike:
Should we remove ourselves from the UN ban on torture …?
I think we should remove ourselves from the UN entirely.
You know, ’someone’ has to defend the likes of a lunatic who beats his grandfather to death with the cast on his arm. I’m just not sure I’d choose to associate myself with that someone.
sbj – fine with me. It’s not as if I didn’t hear that and don’t still about being a criminal defense lawyer.
I suppose you think he shouldn’t have had any lawyer at all? Americans are so wack – the Constitution only applies to me but not to thee if you beat somebody to death.
If that’s the country you want, have at it.
Dick Cheney supports Torture techniques that he believes made captives talk.
Ergo: Dick Cheney is only for the banning of Torture techniques that do not make people talk.
Ergo: Dick Cheney supports the use of the most painful types of torture.
Only Barbarians support torture, which makes Dick Cheney A BARBARIAN, and makes all those who are supporting torture, because “it worked” also BARBARIANS.
@Tena,
You can not reason with such sick people. They support the use of torture, because “it worked”. You are trying to reason with BARBARIANS.
sbj – You’ll love this – I won his appeal.
ScottC:
“I think we should remove ourselves from the UN entirely.”
Seconded!
Well, according to these people, if it we are almost sure it works then we should use it.
Maybe we should just go back to using chemical weapons because well, since they were so effective, and saved American lives, well then, it’s justified.
Heck, we should just nuke NK just in case they are going to attack us because hey, they might come after us.
Like I said, Cheney acts as though he has some sort of crystal ball showing him how he saves hundreds of thousands of lives. I think it was more of a magic 8 ball.
“You can not reason with such sick people. They support the use of torture, because “it worked”. You are trying to reason with BARBARIANS.”
That’s what I said.
Tena:
“You’ll love this – I won his appeal.”
Congratulations! What a service you did o our society.
Now tell me, did you win this appeal BEFORE or AFTER they spiked him?
@tean: “I suppose you think he shouldn’t have had any lawyer at all?”
Sigh, “There you go again.”
Stick to what people actually write please. Your “arguments” will be more persuasive.
If I follow you correctly, you chose to represent someone who beat his grandfather to death with his cast, and you are proud that you helped him to get away with it? I know someone’s got to do it, and it says something about you that you chose to represent this murderer.
I suppose you have the utmost respect for David Addington?
mike from Arlington:
“Heck, we should just nuke NK just in case they are going to attack us because hey, they might come after us.”
I’m okay with that.
And if you knew the first thing about the Kim regime, you’d be okay with it, too.
http://freekorea.us/camps/
Tena:
Suppose that Cheney somehow found himself in the dock on charges of conspiring to commit torture. Would you defend him in court? If not, why not?
mike from Arlington:
I know, I know!
The North Koreans are all good fellow-socialists and have a GREAT Public Health plan and no speculative stock markets…but still, concentration camps and prisoner medical experiments and religious persecution of Christians and Buddhists kinda get under my skin.
Now we have one of them wanting to Nuke N. Korea. He wants to kill millions of people in both N. and S. Korea, and send massive radiation fallout into China and around the globe.
That is how those torture loving BARBARIANS think, and operate.
Scott C. – Not – because I never did have to represent someone I didn’t want to represent. Lawyers aren’t slaves.
See, I’m prejudiced against Cheney – I can’t stand him. I would not be able to set aside my feelings about Cheney so I wouldn’t be the right choice.
@tena: So you WANTED to represent the guy who admittedly beat his grandfather to death with his cast?
Tena:
Why would you not want to represent him?
Tena:
I’m prejudiced against Cheney – I can’t stand him.
Why can’t you stand him? Do you like all your clients, like the cast-killer?
And, if you hate Cheney so much that it would cloud your legal judgment, what makes you think that your hate is not equally clouding your political judgments?
Tena:
“Lawyers aren’t slaves.”
Once again, a shocking lack of insight.
Indeed you ARE a slave.
You earn your daily bread from the function of government.
Without it, you would have to find other work.
A lawyer without a courtroom is like a fish without water.
Professionally speaking, you are a slave.
sbj:
“So you WANTED to represent the guy who admittedly beat his grandfather to death with his cast?”
She needed the “pro-bono” tax break more than she needed to walk her talk.
Or the PD’s office told her that if she didn’t take the case, she’d get no more calls from them.
This thread is not about Tena, so all you Right Wing, Torture Loving BARBARIANS, are not going to divert the attention of the readers away from the fact that you support the use of torture, by trying to make it all about Tena,
It is not, and Tena, you need to stop feeding into their efforts to distract from the thread topic.
Bilgeman | August 31st, 2009 at 01:37 pm
mike from Arlington:
“Heck, we should just nuke NK just in case they are going to attack us because hey, they might come after us.”
I’m okay with that.
And if you knew the first thing about the Kim regime, you’d be okay with it, too.
…………………………
Now we have one of them wanting to Nuke N. Korea. He wants to kill millions of people in both N. and S. Korea, and send massive radiation fallout into China and around the globe.
That is how those torture loving BARBARIANS think, and operate.
Liam:
This thread is not about Tena…
What are you, the thread czar? Threads can be about whatever we want them to be about.
Greg Sargent is the thread czar, and he set the Topic of thread. Apparently you torture loving BARBARIANS think that you get to overrule everyone, or else you will torture or Nuke them.
Go kiss madman John Bolton’s ring, you right wing BARBARIAN, and Greg Sargent will set the thread topics on his blog.
Greg Sargent is the thread czar, and he set the Topic of thread. Apparently you torture loving BARBARIANS think that you get to overrule everyone, or else you will torture or Nuke them.
Go kiss madman John Bolton’s ring, you right wing BARBARIAN, and Greg Sargent will set the thread topics on his blog.
Liam:
Yeah, yeah…I ignored it the first time you excreted it.
What happened o this thread being about Sargent’s studious ignoring of his own publication’s making him look like a meretricious buffoon?
Don’t make me have to report you to the Thread Czar’s Secret Thread Police!
I ken that His Royal Greg-ness isn’t in the best of moods today.
Man the trolls like to take a simple fact and twist it all to hell:
I have prior knowledge of Cheney and his crimes. He was VP and before that he worked in more than one Repug administration.
I had no prior knowledge of any of my clients. If I had had, and had formed an opinion – I would have told the court I couldn’t take the case. D’oh!!!!!
God y’all are idiots.
Liam:
Greg Sargent is the thread czar
I’ll take that as a “No, I am not the thread czar.” In which case, there’s not much reason to pay attention to your thoughts on the matter, is there?
If I had been asked to represent Darly Routier on appeal I would have no – because I thought she was guilty then and I still do.
Because I read all about her and what she did before she ever had a chance to appeal and I have always been convinced she did it and I was revolted by her.
Lawyers are not slaves. Nobody can force you to take a client, though federal judges come damn close -
Actually, Darly had one hell of a good appellate point going for her and I actually was hoping her lawyer would make that the cornerstone of her appeal and he didn’t.
Man I sure would have – it was a prime jurisdictional argument.
Tena:
“I have prior knowledge of Cheney and his crimes”
Define “Hearsay”, counselor, if you’ve ever heard of the term before.
You put yourself in a very bad light here.
If you cannot prove that you have personal knowledge of what you call Cheney’s “crimes”, you have slandered the man.
If you DID have personal knowledge, and didn’t report same to the rightful authorities, you are in jeopardy of having committed a misprision,(a serious offense for an Officer of The Court, as a lawyer is), or even to being prosecuted yourself as an accessory after the fact.
I think it’s rather obvious that you weren’t lead counsel for the “Arm Cast Skull Basher” you helped to beat the rap, huh?
Tena:
I had no prior knowledge of any of my clients. If I had had, and had formed an opinion – I would have told the court I couldn’t take the case.
Just so I understand, it is alright for you to represent, and protect from legal liability, someone whom you know is guilty, as long as you didn’t know they were guilty before agreeing to represent them. But if you think they are guilty before agreeing to represent them, then you can’t represent them. Is that right?
In any event, I was just trying to figure out why it does not bother you that a person known to you to be the cold-blooded killer of a perfectly innocent human being goes free (with your assistance), but it does bother you that a person known to have approved the infliction of pain on a known terrorist remains free. How do you square these two positions of yours?
Yesterday on CBS’s Face The Nation, Sen. John McCain gave his most concise, most direct statement against torture. He said unequivocally that it does not work, that we should not have done it, and that it was an effective recruiting tool for Al Qaeda. He does not support investigation into its use – a point upon which I strongly disagree with him – but he does state very clearly his belief that torture is wrong.
Now, we have Tom Ridge joining that viewpoint. With the vast majority of Americans strongly opposed to torture – now including Republicans within the Bush administration – the only way the Cheney apologists can argue their case is to trot out their red herrings and straw men. They try to euphemistically rebrand torture and argue that it was effective. When conservatives in your own camp are increasingly not buying these facile arguments, why do you think that anyone else will?
ScottC:
“How do you square these two positions of yours?”
Drugs?
Alcohol?
Menatl Illness?
Projection of her self-loathing upon her political adversaries?
Or perhaps a combination of all of the above…I call it “Liberalism”.
PUT CHENEY ON TRIAL — NOW! Forget the little fish. Go after the evil one behind the little fish, and make the rest of his miserable life a living HELL of depositions, investigations, subpoenas and impoverishing legal costs, even if he manages to avoid actual jail time. Hound the evil, miserable old criminal son of a bitcch to his grave. Go after the EVIL BASSTARD CHENEY!
Tena:
“All the wingers here can be on notice right now – I wouldn’t let you hire me. I wouldn’t take any of you as clients, so you don’t have to worry about that, any of you.”
LOL!! The thought of Tena actually pretending to be a lawyer!!
Even better: “It is not, and Tena, you need to stop feeding into their efforts to distract from the thread topic.”
Shorter Liam: “Tena, stop making complete jackasses of us. We already have it covered.”
“Dick Cheney cares about the security of the country”. That is the biggest laugh line off the day.
Five deferments Dick, cares about the security of his investments, and that is why his company, Halliburton, had a phony war drummed up for them by their “Dark Side” Dick-tator. Can you say: No bid contracts for Dick-tator Cheney’s company, boys and girls? That is right, the very first no-bid contract for Iraq, announced by Dick-tator’s crony, Rumsfeld, was to Halliburton.
Dick-tator Cheyney took care of his war profiteering cronies, at the expensive of the lives of thousands of brave young Americans, who really did care about the security of the USA, unlike Five Deferments, Draft Dodging Dick.
bilgeman:
It’s odd that you would cite that Washington Post article, cherry-picking only certain parts of it, since it contains plenty of other material that contradicts your apparent contention that the article is an advertisement that “torture works”.
Nowhere in the Washington Post article, is there any actual proof–just one or two claims–that what, or how much, KSM spoke about after being waterboarded, turned out to be useful, or impossible to get by other means. It says he spent a lot of time holding “terrorist tutorials”, and describing the kind of people that Al-Qaeda sought out, etc., but it’s questionable how much of that translated into actionable intelligence. And are we to believe that the US didn’t already have a lot of information about AQ’s beliefs, structure, etc.? The descriptions in the article sound a lot like KSM trying to fill time, fooling US intelligence into thinking he was in the process of telling them things they didn’t already know, or things they could use. The documents released by the CIA recently, as the article points out, make the same point. Those documents also make the point that they’ll never know now whether they might have gotten the same, if not better, information by not torturing KSM.
For your reference, from the article, here’s KSM himself describing the nature of what he “revealed” after waterboarding:
“During the harshest period of my interrogation I gave a lot of false information in order to satisfy what I believed the interrogators wished to hear in order to make the ill-treatment stop. I later told interrogators that their methods were stupid and counterproductive. I’m sure that the false information I was forced to invent in order to make the ill-treatment stop wasted a lot of their time,” he said.
The article also quotes a “former administration official”: “”He wrote us an essay” on al-Qaeda’s nuclear ambitions, the official said. “Not all of it was accurate, but it was quite extensive.”
“Extensive” seemed to be one of the Bush Jr./CIA’s main goals, rather than focusing on “useful”.
The “reversal” the article speaks of, is typical of someone’s behavior after torture: they begin spouting about all kinds of things, often just to please their interrogators, but without divulging anything. Often, the appearance of cooperation is enough for some interrogators.
When KSM “described plans to strike targets in Saudi Arabia, East Asia and the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks”, this alone would have been no surprise to US intelligence. If KSM actually gave useful, specific information about those operations, named names, or helped in finding names (supposedly about 70) via cross-interrogating other detainees, that’s useful, but again, as the CIA report says, we’ll never know whether that information, if not other, even more useful information, might have been gotten by other means than automatically switching from no torture, to outright torture. And for all the people who might not have died as a result of any actionable intelligence derived from KSM, it’s possible that more people died as a result of Al-Qaeda using the US’s torture policy as a recruiting tool to create more terrorists.
The chickens are coming home to roost.
@Bilgeman
@ScottC
@quarterback
What is with you clowns?
Ya know, I read thru this whole thread and I have to say what a bunch of jerks you must be in person. OR is it just one person with multiple characters/usernames. Who cares, but if you can’t see the twist and spew you three post each time, you really got the blinders on.
Waterboarding IS torture and it is stated clearly in the Geneva Conventions… and therefore regardless if it was a failure or a success — IT IS ILLEGAL and those responsible for commanding it and now promoting it MUST BE investigated and/or prosecuted. Anything more than that is your reliance to your color, creed or party… Why not just yell Heil Hitler before typing anything! Or maybe Kamikzee?
Why don’t you three dingbats tone it down a little. If you like Cheney that much, please take it somewhere else…
Edz,
Thank you for sharing your incoherent rant. Sorry you are allergic to the truth. It’s hard out there for an idiot.
By the way, Eric Holder says the Geneva Conventions don’t apply to detainees. But, I won’t even get started with you. One can’t help those who aspire to ignorance.
EdZ:
“Waterboarding IS torture ”
I agree, and I’ve never claimed otherwise.
The crux of this is that my opinion does not matter. I wasn’t consulted.
That all being said, I’d still be okay with their waterboarding, since they were unlawful enemy combatants as defined under “Quirin et al”.
They weren’t citizens and they weren’t honorable POWs.
Under the settled law of Quirin since 1943, a military tribunal can simply direct that they be hanged.
Done deal…they’re hanged.
“…and it is stated clearly in the Geneva Conventions”
Which neither Al Qaeda nor the Taliban have signed. They have little or no qualms about torturing and beheading OUR guys that fall into their hands.
You think that we should offer them mercy when they fall into ours? We already treat our detainees better than they have treated their prisoners.
Where was your precious Geneva Convention for Nicholas Berg when they sawed his head off with a knife, you flatulent imbecile?
“IT IS ILLEGAL and those responsible for commanding it and now promoting it MUST BE investigated and/or prosecuted.”
So is racial intimidation of voters at a polling place, but I note that Mr. Holder’s Justice Department declined to enforce an already won default judgement against the New Black Panther Party.
You want the CIA “torturers” prosecuted? Go right ahead! By all means!
But guess what? Your opinion STILL won’t count for squat unless you are empaneled on the jury.
And I don’t think that that’s very likely.
“Anything more than that is your reliance to your color, creed or party”
Well, Mr, Holder is showing us all about THAT, isn’t he?
“Why not just yell Heil Hitler before typing anything! Or maybe Kamikzee?”
I hereby invoke Godwin’s Law.
My impression is that bilgeman doesn’t even care whether torture works for ANYTHING–not even “teaching them a lesson”, etc.–except for satisfying his feelings for pointless revenge, and *** for tat. Not only that, he doesn’t care about the negative consequences–more dead western soldiers and civilians as a result of Al-Qaeda using the west’s use of torture as a recruiting tool, drastically reduced standing of the US in the eyes of the rest of the world (no, the damage caused by this can’t be dismissed by stating “we should just withdraw from the UN anyway”), etc. So to argue with him about torture not having been useful for its pretended purpose–to gather intelligence–is a waste of time.
My impression is that John Sawyer is intellectually dishonest.
So when the japanese tortured Americans it was ok with water boarding? I guess when it is done to American soldiers it’s no biggie right? or when bin ladens taxi drivers hijacked planes to kill 3000 of our people it was ok? I say do what muslim countries would do, cut of their genitals and leave them hang in the desert, they’ll talk then!!! do what other countries would do to our soldiers and stop the BS pussing around. You guys are creampuffs and do not deserve to be protected by us. If you think other countries are so humane look at history you morons, American soldiers were the most tortured period. you are morons, check your history, American soldiers captured by other countries were the MOST TORTURED!!!! *** clowns!!! stick up for your own for crying out loud!!!!