DNC: Cheney “Wrong” To Claim Torture Worked
The real news in this new DNC ad attacking Dick Cheney is that the Democratic Party is institutionally challenging Cheney’s claim that torture worked, pronouncing this “wrong.”
To my knowledge this is the first time the DNC has done that so directly this cycle, despite many attacks on Cheney in the past few months. Take a look:
Previously, the DNC — and other White House allies — had mostly lampooned Cheney as a figure of fun on the sidelines, largely declining to engage the substance of the torture debate to avoid elevating his claims. By contrast, this ad flashes the word “wrong” while Cheney says that “the enhanced interrogation techniques were absolutely essential.”
I wonder whether this means Dems are anticipating a higher profile debate over torture — and over national security in general — as more CIA documents emerge, more news comes out about the probe of CIA interrogators, and more attention focuses on Afghanistan. Hence the ad’s effort to remind people about Cheney’s faulty judgment. Pretty interesting.
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It doesn’t matter if it worked or not. Doesn’t the DNC get it, that they are now taking Cheney’s bait.
The efficacy of it, should not even be debated. It is still TORTURE, the choice of Barbaric Dictators, or in this case a Dick-Tator.
Only BARBARIANS support the use of Torture, which makes Cheney a BARBARIAN.
Mr. Sargent:
“Hence the ad’s effort to remind people about Cheney’s faulty judgment. Pretty interesting.”
And let’s just ALSO remind people that the newspaper published by the company that employs you and maintains your blog here published a piece last Saturday that directly contradicted what you had been maintaining for at least a week, but you have to date and to my knowledge, utterly refused to address the piece.
Bilgeman, are you saying that Cheney’s claim that there were WMDs in Iraq and that we’d be greeted as liberators weren’t signs of faulty judgment? Just so we can be clear here.
Panicky is what it is. Everyone who has looked at the information knows EI did work, and marvelously well. Democrats are all scrambly.
As an exercise in the Big Lie and denial, it is pretty darned remarkable.
Where is that WaPo article from Saturday? Ever going to be acknowledged here?
By the way, this line is welcome:
“Previously, the DNC — and other White House allies — had mostly lampooned Cheney as a figure of fun on the sidelines, largely declining to engage the substance of the torture debate to avoid elevating his claims.”
Nice to see Mr. Sargent admitting that Democrats have been behaving as children and avoiding substantive engagement, as they always do.
quarterback, you do know that Wapo Saturday article has been discredited, do you?
They should have added some clips of those folks on Chris Mathews from last night, Reagans deputy SecDef and Colon Powells chief of staff pointing out Cheney’s false argument that because there were no attacks, it was because of what he did.
Occam’s Razor fails again.
Rachael Maddow pretty much nailed it last night with Ridge. The IRAQ WMD claim was one of the biggest failures in intelligence in modern times. Supposedly the best of the best of Republican appointees were in charge of what ultimately made it to Bush’s desk and briefed to Congress.
Cheney and the Republicans failed miserably. Why should anyone believe them now?
Mr. Sargent:
“Just so we can be clear here.”
Yes, let’s…
You’re ducking the point. you artful dodger, you.
Change the subject…discuss a poll…go back to Health Care…Yak about Israel….
Oooooh look, everybody! A pretty unicorn!
Just address the article, will ya?
Bilgepump,
I’ll address what you obviously can’t figure out on your own.
The article was obviously provided to the writers via a Cheney cheerleader. I’m guessing if Greg also feels this is the case, he’s not willing to argue the article because he would have to cross the line and questions his own papers journalistic credibility.
Of course, I’m just some dude at a computer so I could probably be wrong.
Where is the DNC ad playing? It is meaningless to me unless I have that bit of context. Hope your analysis is true, but can’t evaluate it without that information.
sluggo,
I’m sure Greenwald and Marshall and all the right people say so.
Let me explain something. When people say “torture doesn’t work,” the only thing they really mean or base the statement on is that with sufficient torture you can extract false confessions. That really isn’t very relevant here. Most people aren’t yet as stupid as the DNC about this.
mike from arlington:
“I’ll address what you obviously can’t figure out on your own.”
No offense, but I could give a tinker’s d*mn about what you have to say about it.
At your very best, you may have been 3rd understudy tenor in Mr. Sargent’s chorus.
He’s the lead soloist I’d like to hear from.
You’re the just the trained monkey in the funny hat who does cute tricks as the warm-up act, see?
quarterback:
“I’m sure Greenwald and Marshall and all the right people say so”
Which “Greenwald” would that be…there are so very many of him!
Ahh.
INTERNET TOUGH GUY.
I know your type.
From 1993, after the first trade center attack, until 9/11/2001 there were no other attacks either, and that was without the use of torture, so Cheney, and his lap dog, Chris Wallace are completely wrong.
By the way, five deferment Dick, and his Chicken Hawk cohorts, did get thousands of young Americans killed by terrorists,after 9/11. They just staked out those young Americans in the sands of Iraq, where they made it far easier for terrorists to kill them, than to have to try and enter the US to do so.
Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld made the terrorists efforts to kill Americans much easier for them, by setting theyoung Americans up, like sitting ducks, without proper equipment, in Iraq.
More Americans have been killed by Terrorist bombs in Iraq, than were killed on 9/11, and Dick The Torture Loving Barbarian, did not protect them. In fact he was one of the main reasons that their lives were squandered in Iraq.
Ahh.
INTERNET TOUGH GUY.
I know your type.
“Which “Greenwald” would that be…there are so very many of him!”
Are you talking about me?
GOOD DAY TO YOU, SIR!
mike from Arlington:
“I know your type.”
I know your type, too. A legend in your own mind.
Really got you when I pointed out that you’re just another p*ss-lick with a PC, and no-one of any consequence.
You might want to put a safety railing around the edge of that ego of yours, ace, I reckon a fall from it would be fatal.
Here, Chim-chim…have a banana.
quarterback:
And “Good DAY, to YOU, sir!”
May we now stand, face Brazil, and recite the Four Pillars of Greenwald’s Greatness?
I personally don’t give a rat’s A** if torture works or not. It’s illegal. Waterboarding has always been illegal and no amount of trying to circumvent, obfiscate, dodge, change the argument, lie, or anything else will counter that simple fact. You can like torture or not, it’s still illegal.
Bilge Pump support the use of torture, and he called for the Nuking of N. Korea.
Why dialog with such a Barbarian. He clearly is deranged.
mike from Arlington:
Y’know, if you didn’t get yourself so worked up, you wouldn’t have stuttered, which is very hard to do in cyberspace,(but you managed to accomplish it).
“Buh-buh-buh-bilgeman tuh-tuh-tuh tough guy!”
LMAO!
Good point Liam. How can someone sit down and have a conversation with someone who believes nuking a country would be a smart strategic move for the U.S.
It’s obvious the guy has zero interest in honest debate and is only trolling.
Liam,
“until 9/11/2001 there were no other attacks either, and that was without the use of torture, and that was without the use of torture, so Cheney, and his lap dog, Chris Wallace are completely wrong”
Good heavens, man, do some basic reading on the subject, and and try, just try to apply some reasoning ability. Just a couple of the reasons you are wrong: There were other terrorist attacks, and Clinton and Eric Holder were practicing rendition in the 90s. You have some proof they weren’t participating in “torture”?
“their lives were squandered in Iraq”
That’s just plain obscene as well as monumentally stupid.
Obama and Biden have escalated war in Afghanistan, and, contrary to Obama’s insistence upon immediate and total withdrawal from the “wrong” war in Iraq, we are still there.
Chicken Hawks?
Bilge, it doesn’t matter if it worked. This was the debate Cheney wanted- it never should have been the issue. The REAL issue, now and all along, has (or at least should have been) whether it was right or not. And the answer to that question is unequivocally no, its not right. The moment we tortured we stopped being America and became something as bad as what we were endeavoring to combat. There is no debate. Torture was wrong, whether it worked or not.
No number of American lives are worth losing what makes them American lives (that would be freedom with honor, if I haven’t been clear enough)
So Right, I shall say it Twice, or Trice, or…….
Again:
From 1993, after the first trade center attack, until 9/11/2001 there were no other attacks either, and that was without the use of torture, so Cheney, and his lap dog, Chris Wallace are completely wrong.
By the way, five deferment Dick, and his Chicken Hawk cohorts, did get thousands of young Americans killed by terrorists,after 9/11. They just staked out those young Americans in the sands of Iraq, where they made it far easier for terrorists to kill them, than to have to try and enter the US to do so.
Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld made the terrorists efforts to kill Americans much easier for them, by setting theyoung Americans up, like sitting ducks, without proper equipment, in Iraq.
More Americans have been killed by Terrorist bombs in Iraq, than were killed on 9/11, and Dick The Torture Loving Barbarian, did not protect them. In fact he was one of the main reasons that their lives were squandered in Iraq.
holy:
“No number of American lives are worth losing what makes them American lives (that would be freedom with honor, if I haven’t been clear enough)”
So you would trade the lives of all 300 million of us if we could take back waterboarding of KSM?
again, holy:
Would you offer to die rather than have KSM waterboarded?
mike from Arlington:
“Good point Liam. How can someone sit down and have a conversation with someone who believes nuking a country would be a smart strategic move for the U.S”
I want hear what you’ll have to say if they nuke Frisco or LA:
“Nuh-nuh-nuh nuke thuh-thuh-thuh-those buh-buh-buh barbarians!”
Nice use of an unrealistic hyperbolic logical fallacy there quarterback…
We shouldn’t have to take it back. And it doesn’t work the way you’ve asked the question.
However, if we had never waterboarded KSM and (hypothetically) all 300 million Americans had inexplicably perished as a direct result of our failure to torture the man, then at least we would have died with our dignity and honor, as opposed to being no better than KSM himself
Bin Laden is a Barbarian, When Dick Cheney declared that he was going to “The Dark Side”, and started torturing people, just like Bin Laden would do, then the Terrorists won a great victory, because Dick Cheney made America stoop to the same Barbaric level as The Terrorists.
Bin Laden is a Barbarian, and so is Dick Cheney, and so are all those who advocate the use of torture.
quarterback,
“Obama’s insistence upon immediate and total withdrawal”
You’re horribly misinformed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/opinion/14obama.html
“We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces. That would not be a precipitous withdrawal.”
As usual quarterback you miss the point. Torture is illegal. I guess we could all go around and do illegal things all the time, but we wouldn’t have much of a society would we? And yes, most of us would die rather than give up our principles and morality. Isn’t that courage?
jeez qb, take more than 15 seconds to respond and you lash out.
Greg:
Doesn’t intellectual honesty compel you to at least acknowledge that reports from your own employer suggest that it is the DNC, and not Cheney, who is wrong? I really am astonished at your complete refusal to face up to this fact. Do you really such little respect for your audience?
holyhandgrenaid:
“Bilge, it doesn’t matter if it worked. This was the debate Cheney wanted- it never should have been the issue. The REAL issue, now and all along, has (or at least should have been) whether it was right or not. And the answer to that question is unequivocally no, its not right.”
Oh…here we go…the REAL issue. (Moving goalpost alert!).
No, ace, the REAL issue is that it worked and that American lives were saved. That is what folks have already decided, and that’s why Mr, Sargent is up there on the roof, gazing at all the pretty unicorns.
Now as to your own problem, your own conundrum. You apparently believe that MY life is worth less than YOUR subjective notions of Right and Wrong.
It is not. And it is a good thing for you that I do not feel as you do. I am and I have willing to do what is wrong to save your life.
Don’t ask me why, either…I’m just like that.
Maybe I’m just, for all your caterwauling and moral preening, just a better person than you.
holy:
“Nice use of an unrealistic hyperbolic logical fallacy there quarterback…”
You said it, not me. What would you like to alter in the hypothetical? When you referred to, “losing what makes them American lives (that would be freedom with honor,” you meant waterboarding, right?
When you said, “No amount of American lives,” you meant no amount of American lives, right?
So did you mean what you said, when you said, “if I haven’t been clear enough,” or not?
Which part is now wrong? Waterboarding is “torture” enough to be worth American lives? Or is 300 million lives too many? How many would be an appropriate sacrifice to avoid the nasty business of waterboarding?
“jeez qb, take more than 15 seconds to respond and you lash out.”
Honestly did mean to. Was actually hoping you would see both.
Bilge, I hold my morals in higher regard than my own life, so why would you expect me to hold your life in higher regard than my morals? Its no disrespect, you understand, its simply my worldview.
holyhandgrenaid:
“Bilge, I hold my morals in higher regard than my own life, so why would you expect me to hold your life in higher regard than my morals? Its no disrespect, you understand, its simply my worldview”
What Would Jesus Do?
Bilge Pump is a complete homicidal maniac. He wants to do a preemptive Nuclear strike on N. Korea. You know, the type of Nuclear Pearl Harbour attack on another country, that would kill millions of people in both Koreas, some in China, and massive fallout around the globe. He just pretends that he really cares about national security, but that is just a front, so he can entertain his deranged visions of raining down nuclear death on millions of people. The same sort of attack that his right wing heroes, such as John Bolton, claim they want to keep other nations from every being capable of.
In their world, the USA should Nuke who ever they want, and at any time, but we should never allow any other country to get to the point where they might follow our lead.
All this talk about worrying about someone nuking one of our cities, when only one nation has ever nuked any city, and that nation did it twice, and now the right wing nut jobs are lusting after a nuclear holocaust in Korea.
Bilge Pump, is Dr.Strangelove.
He has learned to love our Bombs, and pretends to fear the bombs that others do not have.
Ignore him. He is a homicidal maniac.
my point regarding the fallacy was that there is no conceivable scenario where not torturing a single man would have resulted in the death of the entire population of the USA.
I meant every word I said, and you know that full well
Breaking: Obama to “address a joint session of Congress in prime time on September 9th on his plans for health care reform.”
Which is just a terrible idea because the Fox fall season will officially open on September 9th with the sixth season premiere of So You Think You Can Dance followed by the new series Glee.
Great – From President Clinton my young sons learned about blow jobs, and from VP Cheney, my teen age sons learned about torture and that two wrongs do make a right. And that is just one reason why I voted Democratic straight ticket last election.
You voted Democratic because your sons learned about blowjobs from Clinton?
Liam:
Calm down Mary, you’re gonna have an aneuyrism getting so hysterical.
“You know, the type of Nuclear Pearl Harbour attack on another country”
Are you even an American with that Limey spelling?
There’s wonderful things that have been done with nukes in the 60 years since Hiroshima, (heck,,,a <15 kiloton yield, which was what Little Boy was, is considered "tactical" nowadays and can be effected with a field artillery piece.
But they also go smaller yield, wee tiny little things that could take Kim Jong Il right out of the box and leave the wrapping paper intact, see?
Literally, just slide one of those puppies in his back pocket, don your welding helmet, and "Poof!" no more Kim! Then open up his detention camps and see what co-existence with that beast hath wrought.
Just like after we put Sadaam into the manila necktie, and began "harvesting" the bodies out of his "gardens" all over Iraq.
I know you are not that obtuse, I voted Democratic because of the train wreck of governance from the Bush/Cheney admin the last eight years. Including the underlying ethos of lies and two wrongs might make a right. There are some of us out here who still believe in morals based on intangible values.
“What Would Jesus Do?”
He wouldn’t waterboard anyone, that’s for damn sure. “Greater love hath no man, than to lay down his life for his brother” and all that.
If torture is our defense against being attacked, then we truly are screwed.
We spend hundreds of billions, each year, on the CIA, and other Intelligence, and National Security operations, and all that provides us with is the notion that the only way we can be protected from a massive nuclear attack is if we can capture someone and torture some information from them, that will allow us to head off the attack!!!
Well now, isn’t that a great admission. We can get rid of all that national security apparatus, and save hundreds of billions yearly, because they clearly are not worth having, because all they can depend on is what info they can torture out of someone.
How pathetic an admission is that. The CIA’s only worthwhile operation is Torture. That is what Cheney, and his fellow barbarians are claiming.
Those idiots can not tell the difference between fiction and reality. That is why they are always spouting, on and on, about a fictional character named Jack Baur.
That show is on Fox, so it is no coincidence that so many viewers think Jack Bauer is real. After all their viewers swallow all the other fiction that Fox Spews shovels into their empty craniums, on a daily basis.
mike:
“You’re horribly misinformed.”
Actually, you are. Or you drink the Koolaid whenever Obama gives his “as I’ve always said” signal that he is lying and just changed his position again.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2007/09/12/Obama-Withdraw-from-Iraq-immediately/UPI-50171189629808/
I had another example for you that it took a minute to find, but this site seems to be glitchy today.
Min:
“He wouldn’t waterboard anyone, that’s for damn sure. “Greater love hath no man, than to lay down his life for his brother” and all that.”
He beat some people with a whip, others he healed, others he fed, and he died for the sins of people who had never even heard of him after telling his disciples to essentially “gun up”.
He’s not as easy to dope out as we’d like to make of him.
We DO know that he didn’t care to be awakened when he was off-watch.
# sbj | September 2nd, 2009 at 04:25 pm
You voted Democratic because your sons learned about blowjobs from Clinton?
………………………..
And did your sons learn to wear adult diapers from David Vitter,
or did they learn, from Larry Craig, how to hang out in Airport Mens’ room stalls, and use their foot to tap out in code: I-DA-HO I-DA-HO I-DA-HO
Or did they learn from Gov. Sanford and Hon, that they can skip father’s day with family, as long as they are going hiking on the Old Appalachian Soul Mate Trail.
Nice glass house that you are trying to lobby you sexual morality brick from there, Bucko!
sbj:
“You voted Democratic because your sons learned about blowjobs from Clinton”
That’s about as rational a reason as I’ve ever heard for doing that.
See, he just continues to expose what a homicidal maniac he is. Now he trots out the same old fascist tactics about how he is a real American, and any one with a different opinion is not.
Again:
Bilge Pump is a complete homicidal maniac. He wants to do a preemptive Nuclear strike on N. Korea. You know, the type of Nuclear Pearl Harbour attack on another country, that would kill millions of people in both Koreas, some in China, and massive fallout around the globe. He just pretends that he really cares about national security, but that is just a front, so he can entertain his deranged visions of raining down nuclear death on millions of people. The same sort of attack that his right wing heroes, such as John Bolton, claim they want to keep other nations from every being capable of.
In their world, the USA should Nuke who ever they want, and at any time, but we should never allow any other country to get to the point where they might follow our lead.
All this talk about worrying about someone nuking one of our cities, when only one nation has ever nuked any city, and that nation did it twice, and now the right wing nut jobs are lusting after a nuclear holocaust in Korea.
Bilge Pump, is Dr.Strangelove.
He has learned to love our Bombs, and pretends to fear the bombs that others do not have.
Ignore him. He is a homicidal maniac.
Liam:
Really, there was no need to repeat your hissy-fit for us all, I had a good chortle the first go ’round.
Now why don’t you answer my simple question?
Are. You. An. American. Citizen?
(Check one:)
YES
NO
If you can’t answer the question, you’ll simply have to go relieve Mr. Sargent from his “Unicorn Attack Watch” up on the roof.
While I respect Greg’s opinion enormously I’m not certain that the DNC is so concerned about whether torture worked or not as much as to use Cheney’s big mouth against him. Like it or not Cheneyites that spot clearly points out he is a dumbXXX. He was wrong on EVERY major issue. Whether it works or not if he authorized (and I realize that’ll probably never be discovered in legal terms)..but if he authorized torture then Cheney is at minimum a common criminal! You can add barbarian traitor and whatever else you wish…but there is no disputing IF he authorized torture he is an INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL and I thought we had signed treaties promising to prosecute criminals.
As far as this spot the dems have not taken the bait…it’s Cheney’s monstrous ego that has taken the bait…his idiotic blathering has provided the dems with an excuse to run this spot showing how WRONG he was on very important issues, And as Turley, Dean and other attorneyes have pointed out he might yet blab his way into a prosecution that he has “apparently” so sorely earned for violating our agreeements and International Law.
And so QB and Bilgeman forgetting the debate as to whether it works or not….are you for violating the Law?
if he authorized torture then Cheney is at minimum a common criminal!
No.
If he authorized torture then he is a war criminal, not a common criminal.
It’s very interesting to see that the DNC is spending time and money and resources on an ad that attacks Cheney when the current admin effort is all about health care reform. What’s going on?
That is really it, rukidding. All the spin and the parsing can’t hide the fact that the Law was violated.
And it is good for everyone to be reminded of how wrong Cheney has been about really important issues.
Bilge Pump, The Homicidal Barbarian, thinks that he gets to check out who is an American or not. I know he is not. He may have been born here, but his love of torture and nuclear holocaust makes him one of the most Un-American cretins that any one could ever come across.
He is really a citizen of of some place where all psychopaths feel at home. He is just as sick and vicious as Bin Laden.
sbj:
“What’s going on?”
You’re smarter than that…keep these bozos spun up and mollified with an investigation that discovers, months from now, that the vice-President has no Constitutional Authority to “authorize” anything when there’s a sitting President.
This is so they’ll keep their yaps shut when the Health care bill passes that keeps things exactly as they are, only more expensive.
It’s “Two-Card Monte” as played in Washington.
And watch ‘em chump for it.
Liam:
YES
or
NO?
holy:
“my point regarding the fallacy was that there is no conceivable scenario where not torturing a single man would have resulted in the death of the entire population of the USA.
I meant every word I said, and you know that full well”
Like the other liberals here who fume about “torture” and “barbarity,” you don’t seem to know what your position is when your own statements are taken seriously. Your original point was, we shouldn’t waterboard, because:
“No number of American lives are worth losing what makes them American lives (that would be freedom with honor, if I haven’t been clear enough)”
So either that is where you stand, or it isn’t. If you wouldn’t trade 300 million lives to avoid waterboarding KSM, you don’t really believe it and were just spouting reckless and nonsensical rhetoric. Because it is important for you to claim moral superiority.
If you in fact “meant every word” of it, then we can safely conlcude you lack the moral judgment to be taken seriously.
Does anyone else get the mental image that Liam, wherever and whatever he is, is hiding behind his chair and tapping on his keyboard with a stick while peeking fearfully at his monitor?
Hey Liam:
“BOO!”
we can safely conlcude you lack the moral judgment to be taken seriously.
As we can also about you.
quarterback:
“So either that is where you stand, or it isn’t. If you wouldn’t trade 300 million lives to avoid waterboarding KSM, you don’t really believe it and were just spouting reckless and nonsensical rhetoric. Because it is important for you to claim moral superiority.
If you in fact “meant every word” of it, then we can safely conlcude you lack the moral judgment to be taken seriously.”
Nicely played.
Since our Defense Budget is greater than the defense budgets of the next forty nine countries, combined, and Cheney and his torturing loving supporters, feel that we must torture those we capture, or millions of us are going to die; Then, shouldn’t every nation start grabbing anyone they suspect, and start torturing the lives out of them on a non stop basis, for their national security/national paranoia agendas.
If the country with the greatest defense budget, by far, and the greatest Intelligence Agencies budgets, by far, can only rely on torture for it’s survival, then surely we should have Cheney go to the UN, and press them to let all weaker nations establish torture national defense depts. at once.
Isn’t that the logical extension of what Cheney, and his torture loving imbeciles are promoting.
I would love to see Cheney make that address on the world stage, and he should bring along all his proof of concept evidence, that shows how his sadism is the way to keep everyone safe from mean, and vicious hypothetical baddies, and their hypothetical dirty bombs, with LED read outs, and how we knew how to capture the guy who knew what time it will go off, and where it has been planted.
I know, I know what you are saying; don’t those guys just blow their selves up, instead of setting a delay timer. Yes, that is true, but that would ruin the love fictional scenario that Dick would be telling all the world, and we wouldn’t want cold hard facts to get in the way of having America’s bigest Dick tell the world about his dandy magic torture wand.
rukidding,
Your uninformed, senseless rant isn’t much basis for answering your pointless question, but, no, I don’t support breaking the law. Although there are situations where I absolutely would. You too, right, champ?
You are seriously citing Turley and Dean as serious reason to believe Cheney is “talking” himself into legal jeopardy?
Look, this is a huge mistake for your party. The more this debate happens, the more Cheney is seen dismantling DNC talking points in calm, lucid detail, the more your ongoing self-immolation accelerates. I couldn’t be happier about it.
Liam:
Did you just abuse some medication?
Are you high right now?
Bilge Pump is so scared of the big bad world that he wants to use torture, and he wants to Nuke milliond of people in another country, and he thinks he is not the one who comes across as being a gutless piece of human detritus, who has soiled himself ever time Cheney or Tom Ridge jerked his stoneless appendage.
@Liam….great post but wasted on the torturers..you use logic…and you are cruel…do you not realize you are ruining the next episode of 24 for them?
Liam;
Stoned and stoopid is no way to go through life, son.
I’m doing all I can for yoy about the latter, but it won’t take at all if you won’t help me to help you by doing something about the former.
Put down the crack pipe, fella.
Bilge Pump sounds like the sort of deranged lunatic that is just about to go berserk, to sate his blood lust.
I hope someone knows where he is holed up, behind his Tom Ridge defense kit, of Duct Tape and Plastic Sheeting. Please have someone do an intervention, before he acts out his homicidal delusions.
I think Liam sounds more hammered than stoned, Bilgeman. Just my opinion.
He’s kind of boring, too, the way rambling drunks get.
Well Well Well,
The Confederacy Of Torture Loving Imbeciles have rallied to defend one of their own kind, who just got his Chicken Hawk Behind kicked right through his Bilge Drain.
quarterback:
You could be right. If he’s Irish or a Brit, and in Pub-Land, this is about the hour for seeing unicorns through the bottom of your pint glass,
Now if he’s a Kiwi or an Aussie, he’s blotto by 0800 or 1000 am in the morning…which ’splains a lot.
The elephant in the room that all of the Cheney/pro torture apologists seem to blithely ignore is that torture is illegal. Do you contend that a sitting Vice President or even President is above the law? There is no basis for declaring torture legal or moral, so you argue its efficacy. The only evidence in support of its efficacy comes from Cheney and his supporters. Nobody else claims that it works. As I have mentioned previously, Matthew Alexander and all other current or former CIA, FBI, and military interrogators who have publicly spoken on the issue have maintained that it does not work and that information obtained via torture is useless. There is no way to determine if the information you get via torture is actionable or just junk given to stop the torture. Yet, you maintain “torture works.”
You’ve also been shot down on that issue by no less than John McCain. He stated quite clearly this past Sunday on “Face the Nation” that torture does not work, that it will lead to false confessions – a topic on which he has firsthand knowledge. He also stated that it did not make us safer, it had the opposite effect. He spoke to an Al Qaeda operative who told him that images from Abu Ghraib and knowledge of torture programs at Guantanmo and elsewhere were the single most effective recruiting tools for Al Qaeda. Dick Cheney recruited more Islamic extremists to our enemy’s camp than did Osama Bin Laden. According to Sen. McCain, torture made us less, not more safe
One absolute certainty: people make errors. No person or system can operate without flaw. The decision to torture is also antithetical to our very notion of democracy and the rule of law, for it bypasses habeas corpus, the right to an attorney, and the right to a trial by jury of peers. It also does not allow for the possibility of error, as judge, jury, and executioner are all combined in the person of the torturer. We also know that the vast majority of people detained were simply innocent victims at the wrong place at the wrong time. Detainees were held because of vendettas, bribes, bounties, and because of the fog of war. Surely, some legitimate bad guys were held, but we couldn’t seem to distinguish between the guilty and the innocent. How then, do we make the decision as to whom we torture?
We have had many highly publicized cases of innocent people in the U.S. whose errant convictions were overturned because of DNA evidence, and those injustices occurred here in this country with lawyers, courts, and public scrutiny. Isolate detainees to a foreign shore, remove the protection of courts and legal advocacy, and add in the incipient ethnic and religious bigotry driving much of this and you have a system that will insure that many innocent people are subjected to torture. Our notion of justice has never allowed a scattershot method of punishment that is meted out to innocent and guilty alike. Why should this be viewed as anything other than a perversion of justice?
I think that the reason for all of the cognitive dissonance and abnegation of everything we previously believed about ourselves and our notion of democracy is simple and quite clear. These calls promoting torture are nothing more than overt expressions of ethnic and religious bigotry. It is telling that the only people subjected to torture thus far are nearly exclusively Muslim. Concomitant to glorifying the torturers has been this consistent effort to dehumanize Muslims to make the barbarity acceptable. Torture of anybody is wrong. There are no exceptions. Proffer all of the straw men ticking time bomb scenarios, demand in outraged tones, “So you would trade the lives of all 300 million of us if we could take back waterboarding of KSM?” These are “arguments” are specious and intellectually dishonest.
Torture is wrong. It does not work. It is illegal. It is immoral. It is antithetical to any sense of justice. It does not allow for error. It offers no protection to the innocent. It degrades both torturer and tortured alike.
We know that torture violates domestic and international law. We know that our acts of torture have recruited likely thousands to the camps of our enemies. It has therefore, not kept us safe. We know that once we decide to abandon the protection of our legal framework, there are no safeguards. Under such a system, errors are guaranteed. Despite all this, there are still those who maintain that we should torture. It is quite clear that it is impossible to maintain loyalty to the Constitution and advocate torture. The two are mutually exclusive and wholly incompatible. You either support our Constitutional democracy or you don’t. The two cannot coexist.
As for me, I will side with the Constitution.
Liam:
“The Confederacy Of Torture Loving Imbeciles have rallied to defend one of their own kind, who just got his Chicken Hawk Behind kicked right through his Bilge Drain.”
Better watch out, or mike from Arlington will call you an In-in-in inter nuh-nuh-nuh net tuh-tuh-tuh-tough guh-guh-guh guy!
Wouldn’t want us to pull out our “Big Guns” would you?
Gasman:
“The elephant in the room that all of the Cheney/pro torture apologists seem to blithely ignore is that torture is illegal.”
Prove it.
Prove what – that torture is illegal, or that you apologists blithely ignore that?
Gasman the devout Christian is still speaking for the Father of Lies — his latest tome just another pile of the same lies, tautologies, non sequiturs, red herrings, straw men, legal gibberish, and inanities as before. And horrifically turgid and pedantic prose. What a bore. Bleh
Whom among the pro-torture posters has acknowledged the illegality of torture?
Oddjob,
You should just find an emoticon sticking out its tongue and post that every time you want to say something. It would save you work and have the same substance. Really, it would.
quarterback,
Your hypocrisy is showing again. It is easy and facile to shout “liar!” and much more difficult to cite my “ies, tautologies, non sequiturs, red herrings, straw men, legal gibberish, and inanities” and provide factual evidence to prove your point. You don’t, you merely rail incoherently. You howl like a banshee when your demands for questions go unanswered, yet ignore any questions you find inconvenient to your twisted views.
Since you brought it up, I will proudly proclaim that my stance is not at odds with the teachings of Christ, as is yours. Whom would Jesus torture?
Gasman:
Prove it.
See, for all your verbosity, all you have really done is set yourself up as the sole arbiter of the law, but the law doesn;t work the way you apparently think it does.
What is the crime you are charging people with?
Waterboarding?
This procedure is carried out on our servicepeople at SERE school/ Can it be legal there but not at Guantanamo?
No.
Then it isn’t legally “torture” at all. Or…SERE School has been a criminal institution all these years.
So that is that.
Onwards…who are the people that you are charging with this alleged “crime”?
The “hands-on guys”?
Who is going to give testimony against them…KSM and other admitted terrorists? And what jury is going to believe them?
Dick Cheney? As VP he did not have the Constitutional Power to “authorize” ANYTHING in the executive branch.
Justice Department Lawyers? For whay? Issuing opinions? Again…who is going to give testimony? Other lawyers of the Justice Department…who themselves might have to issue an opinion one day?
And who is going to be the ones you ask to bring charges against whomever it is you wish to charge for whatever reason it is you wish?
Eric Holder?
Ha-ha-ha! He didn’t get where he is by being a stupid man.
He’s going to want a Federal Grand Jury to issue indictments.
Do you REALLY think a Grand Jury consisting of the citizens of the District of Columbia, (9/11 Target Zone Two), are going to prefer indictments against counterintelligence and/or Justice department lawyers on the testimony of admitted terrorists and some MSNmoonbat and his cronies for something we do to our own troops in training?
But I’ll be so magnanimous as to grant you THAT series of miracles, and the indictments come down, and it goes to a criminal trial.
NOW we’re all playing for keeps…you’ve already done untold amounts of damage to our security by airing secrets in a grand jury room, now you’re going to blab them all over the tee-vee…very well.
Now you need to prove all of that all over again and get another, smaller, completely different DC jury to actually convict these people?
And a DC judge to imprison them?
Please.
(Just to refresh your memory, slashing your ex-wife’s throat nearly to decapitation IS against the law, and the guy most of us think did it beat the rap and walked…THAT was the law, ace. THAT is how it works).
You ain’t the law, and nor do you have a monopoly on deciding what is.
Quarterback…your response to gasman’s wonderful articulation of the fallacy of your position has placed you in the same ad hominen category as Bilgeman. You literally made NO points at all but simply resorted to name calling. You are revealing yourself to be truly desperate when your forfeit your intelligence and simply resort to name calling.
And so let me respond in advance to any name calling you direct at me…says who?…neener neener…I know you are so what am I? So QB why not change your name to PeeWee Herman…because intellectuallly speaking gasbag took you apart!!!
You should just find an emoticon sticking out its tongue and post that every time you want to say something. It would save you work and have the same substance. Really, it would.
Wow. You have something worthless to add.
Bully for you.
You remain morally depraved as long as you believe we should torture (under whatever euphemism you prefer to rename it by).
Awwww, gee.
Ain’t none of you palookas in this angry mob actually thought through the nuts and bolts of the process between tapping on the ‘puter and seeing Dick Cheney hanged, did you?
Moonbats…you think that because you say it and agree to it an spin around three times that it just should magically happen.
Truly laughable if it wasn’t so pathetic.
Let’s see if we can sum this up.
Your pro-torture side:
Hitler
Stalin
Pol Pot
Satan
All of our combined enemies, foreign and domestic
Those who hate democracy and justice
Those who hate the law
Dick Cheney
Cheney’s imbecilic posse of moribund cave dwellers (this could include you, I suppose)
quarterback
My anti-torture side:
The entire hostory of organized religion
Jesus Christ
Judeo-Christian ethics
The founding fathers
The Constitution
The concepts of justice and democracy
Those who respect democracy and justice
Those who love the law
Domestic law
International law
Gasman
I am content with the way those lists shape up.
Gasman:
ROFLMAO!
Now THERE’S a comeback….Monnbat Internet POTD, Baby!
You and Jesus,,,close…just like this!
rukidding,
You see, I couldn’t really care less about your evaluation of me. Gasman has a history here of which he is well aware. I don’t respond to him anymore, and have little else to say about him. He knows exactly the basis for my statement. His past conduct excludes him from consideration as a good-faith participant.
And yeah, he is a huge, sanctimious, self-righteous, hypocrit of a windbag.
“Military necessity does not admit of cruelty – that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, nor of maiming or wounding except in fight, nor of torture to procure confessions.”
- Abraham Lincoln, Rule 16, General Order No. 100 of 1863
oddjob,
Any other random, irrelevant quotations we should see? Or did it escape you that none of what Lincoln said there addresses our interrogation of detainees for intelligence information?
Only a moral dimwit would make that distinction.
As I said, as long as you believe we should torture you are morally unfit to be taken seriously.
quarterback:
Look, poor oddjob has done plum run out of ideas.
Liam is somewhere sleeping it off, Gasman is playing Texas Hold’em with Jesus, Moses and Buddha, and Mr. Sargent has punched out from sitting on the roof gazing at the unicorns so that he doesn’t have to address the WaPo article of last weekend.
Give oddjob points for hangin’ tough…even if his own “inner larder” is so bare that he has to post pre-packaged thought.
At least he’s quoting it and not trying to pass off a TV dinner as “home made”.
I would waterboard KSM to save lives. Just like I would shoot an intruder attacking my family. I’d empty a clip and reach for another, if that’s what it took. You betcha.
You wouldn’t even waterboard KSM to save your own family, or say you say. That is either hypocritical posturing or profound moral confusion, to put it kindly.
Yawn……..
The morally depraved giving each other bl0wj0bs……….
I would waterboard KSM to save lives.
And Ronald Reagan would put you in jail.
Supporters of torture, rail away. I am quite content to be on the side of established law. What side are you on? It certainly isn’t a legal one. My position is legal, both domestically and internationally. Yours is not.
I should have addressed that last post to oddjob, poor, lost oddjob.
Bilgeman,
Yeah, it’s like trying to reason with children — bad, spoiled, disturbed children. After a while the nonsense just gets tiresome. Time for a break.
oddjob:
“And Ronald Reagan would put you in jail.”
You’re athick one, aren’y you? You STILL don’t get it?
It’s the Jury that decides who is guilty, and the Court that sentences you.
Jeeze, you’re being a dullard!
Maybe you should turn off MSLSD and watch some CourtTV instead.
Y’know…broaden your horizons n’all.
Gasman:
“Supporters of torture, rail away. I am quite content to be on the side of established law. What side are you on? It certainly isn’t a legal one. My position is legal, both domestically and internationally. Yours is not.”
Sure pal…and your sh*t doesn’t stink, either, right?
C’mon, O sonorous one, this is all you can come up with in rebuttal to my riposte of your 7 paragraph “Anti Torture Code of Hammurabi”?
I spotted you the “crime”, the “accused” and even the Grand Jury indictment…and still your journey through the process doesn’t make it.
You can’t carry the ball across the finish line when you’re starting from my 10 yard line even?
Believe what you wish, but you’re pretty definitely shown yourself to be another pompous egotistical buffoon.
Judge Dredd wannabe…
Having served jury duty, I’m aware of that.
Thanks anyway. Way to not understand my point, ie., that President Reagan felt your stance was criminal and abhorrent, as it is.
oddjob:
“And Ronald Reagan would put you in jail.”
Newsflash: Sullivan didn’t and doesn’t have a clue, and neither do you. Please investigate the United States’ treatment of the Convention and report back.
That’s just one of the additional reasons you are wrong. But one is enough for now.
And, guess what, even if Ronald Reagan would have put me in jail for it, I would STILL waterboard KSM to save lives, most particularly my family.
Unlike you, I am a normal human being with moral reasoning faculties and don’t exalt moral abstractions or my own moral vanity over the clear and compelling imperative of protecting my family — or someone else’s family — from a terrorist.
oddjob:
“Having served jury duty, I’m aware of that”
Oh now THERE’S a comforting thought!
Did you give “the bunny” the Chair?
Why not?
He wouldn’t have been in he dock if he hadn’t broken the law right?
Oh…hang on…what’s that? Extenuating circumstances? Context? Diminished Capacity maybe? Everyone giving testimony in the case is a lying scumbag?
Hmmmm.
Nuance, huh?
It’s not as cut and dry as it appears to be is it?
“Way to not understand my point, ie., that President Reagan felt your stance was criminal and abhorrent, as it is.”
Reagan also issued a lot of Pardons, as I’m sure you know.
So maybe even HE understood that sometimes folks are on the horns of a dilemna.
a terrorist
OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH!!!!!! BOOGA BOOGA!!!!
Coward…………
Do you call them diaperheads when you’re with your friends?
oddjob:
I’ll now leave you to your Happy Place…nice bright day care room with big shiny toys to play with.
If you behave yourself, you’ll get milk and cookies!
Greg – how do these personal attacks add to the conversation here? I used to learn a lot here, not only from your writing, but from the well-reasoned and informative commentary. I miss when the dialogue could be pointed but stayed respectful, and I miss what I used to learn here.
For simply advocating the rule of law, I have been accused of, “lies, tautologies, non sequiturs, red herrings, straw men, legal gibberish, and inanities.”
Please, those who would torture, explain how your advocacy of criminal conduct is more right? Isn’t “crime” a synonymous superlative of “wrong?”
How can one advocating crimes ever be right?
“For simply advocating the rule of law”
Typical self-pitying falsehood.
quarterback,
Your premise is built upon the shifting sands of illegality. You somehow contend that violating the law is more “right” than obeying the law. Please explain.
Gasman:
“Please, those who would torture, explain how your advocacy of criminal conduct is more right? Isn’t “crime” a synonymous superlative of “wrong?””
For a guy who thinks he has Jesus in his pocket, you’re remarkably blind.
Been explained endless times before, Gasman, right in these threads, and you have read it. But your mind is clouded with pride, hatred, and lies from your true master. You don’t engage in honest discussion; that isn’t your purpose. You are a fraud, a Pharisee who would have tried to stone Jesus for healing on the sabbath. And I have no more to say to you.
Bilgeman,
I was especially stuck by the moral blindness of that line as well, but I stopped engaging gasbag a while ago in any detailed discussion.
This position of liberals can be summarized as Emperor Ferdinand’s motto: “Let justice be done, though the world perish.”
A lofty abstraction, but morally bankrupt upon examination.