Dick Cheney, outlaw

And what I still don't understand is the Bush Administration's response immediately following the 911 attacks; if I was President and something like that happened on my watch, I'd want to know why there was such an intelligence failure that allowed such a thing to happen--and somebody would get fired.

But there's Cheney, still using the line "we haven't been attacked in 8 years..." and I think, yeah, but we shouldn't have been attacked then, either.

Rod -

I thought Cheney's remarks were outrageous, but, to me, it was also outrageous that Chris Wallace asked such weak questions to the VP. To call it a soft interview would be an insult to soft interviews.

Cheney basically took the Nixon view of the presidency.

What's really sad to me is how many people this morning are defending Cheney's clear illegal theories.

KM -

Several detainees DIED while being interrogated. We don't know if they were actually terrorists, but they were killed by US personnel.

According to Dick Cheney, that was okay, "given the circumstances".

Dick Cheney deserves public scorn, not adulation. We're a nation of laws, and if the #2 person in the Government can't be made to follow the law, why should anyone?

THIS is the sort of outrage that should have people screaming at Town Hall meetings. The former VP of the United States said, without regret or irony, that the ends justify the means.

Cheney really is "Tricky Dick II." Perhaps he wasn't always, but I've never been able to stomach him since he was Secretary of Defense under George Herbert Walker Bush.

Ever since I watched him in interviews adopt what I call "the confidential tone" which implies that the rest of us are being "wised up" I've deeply mistrusted him. This is a man who believes power is it's own justification.

I find Dick Cheney very scary for exactly the reasons you outline Rod. I'm not as sure about Bush's views, but I have to think that if he shared them to the same degree, we would have seen even more of an executive power grab than we did. Thank God Bush did not die in office is all I have to say...

That said, I don't think Cheney is representative of most politicians -- right or left -- in his views of executive power or his willingness to cross the line of the law *with impunity*. There may be some cohort who would do it ONLY under extreme circumstances and feel very conflicted about it. I would still not approve, but could understand their dilemma. What concerns me so about Cheney is how cavalier he is about it -- where *do* his moral scruples start to kick in? That level of disdain for the American system of law, liberty and governance is, I hope and pray, fairly extreme and fringe among elected officials.

Elizabeth
Your right, it doesn't apply to bank Robbery,
Just stopping Air liners full of our neighbors from flying into places of work.

AKA Acts of WAR!

I know, I know- Bush lied people died, Oil for Blood. I got it.

yn -

Re: "What makes Cheney so different?"

Um... DEATH.

Detainees (not convicted terrorists, Detainees) died directly because of Cheney's policies.

THAT's what makes Cheney so different.

Well, it just shows how thin the veneer of law is. Laws are like ice cream, easily melted.

People like KM and Curtis think the only way to "protect" us is to torture people, but wasn't everyone screaming about how all we needed to have done was "connect the dots" in order to prevent 9/11.

I don't remember people saying - Oh, if only we had tortured people, that would have prevented 9/11.

But whatever, people like KM and Curtis are not rational, they just want to feel "safe" at any cost.

Jerry

These are not Belgium tourists they are men captured on the field of battle or in rare circumstances in operations. At any other time in the history of man they would have been killed were they stood. We give them a comfortable cell with prayer rugs 3 meals a day following koranic dietary rules. Our guards ONLY touch the Koran with gloves hands for their sensibilities. Might I say it again, at another point in history they would be dead, not to mention in most other countries (ie Russia, Sudan, Yeman, Cuba, Indonesia, China, Venezuela, Most African and Asian Nations, etc.).

Me thinks you protest much.
To bad Cheney doesn't spell his name with a -linton on the end he would be given an award. Remember those missiles and that aspirin factor during the Lewensky deposition?

That's a big jump from saying he might permit rape because he looked the other way on water boarding.

One would like to think so, KM, but John Yoo, one of Cheney's willing tools at the Justice Department, has said publicly that it might be OK for the president to order a child's testicles crushed. Not just the threat, the act.

Also, you're so convinced that the people who were tortured were "bad men." How do we know that? Lots of detainees who were held for a long time have been released without charges; they were, in other words, wrongly detained. Many were not bad men at all. No court examined or ruled on these cases at the time -- the Bush Administration fought hard for the principle that they couldn't -- so all we have is the say-so of whatever field-level operative or commander allowed the original arrests. It would amuse me, if it weren't so cynical and corrupt, that some of the same conservatives who scream about how the government can't do anything right think that it suddenly becomes infallible when the issue is identifying terrorists.

OK, so I get that guys like you and Curtis don't care what happens to innocent people if they happen to be of other nationalities or in some other way not fully human in your eyes. Fine. But let's be clear about what it would mean to institutionalize the Bush/Cheney principles fully, if we haven't already done so. As Curtis says, let's move from the abstract to the personal. According Bush, Cheney, Yoo and the others, it's OK for the president to have the power to decide, on his own say-so and without any right for anyone else to review the decision, what individuals -- including which U.S. citizens -- are "enemy combatants," and then to have those individuals wiretapped without authorization, to have their homes broken into and searched in secret and to have them imprisoned indefinitely and/or tortured. Those are positions the Bush Administration took in public and in court and that Cheney has vigorously defended.

Now, take a look at who's currently president. Are either of you, KM or Curtis (or anyone else reading this who thinks like them), prepared to say that Barack Hussein Obama should have all those same powers, unchecked and unreviewable? You would be OK with Obama wiretapping, say, Glenn Beck and anyone who quotes him favorably in public? Or with Obama deciding whether the people who brought guns to town-hall meetings were "terrorist suspects" who should be locked away indefinitely, and maybe tortured for further information about other people who carry guns and where the guns are coming from, and who else they know who thinks Obama is a Hitleresque tyrant? And if Obama ever bothered to explain any of this or even tell us it was happening -- under Bush/Cheney doctrine, he wouldn't have to -- and if his reason was that he was preventing possible domestic terrorist attacks and keeping us all safe, you would nod in agreement and say yes, that's great, that's what presidents ought to be doing, I'm glad we gave them this power?

That's your view? Because if not -- if you're not prepared to say that Obama should have the power to do all those things, and in general to grant lawless, unreviewable power to all presidents, not just those you happen to like -- then your positions are not serious and you have absolutely no idea what the rule of law is all about.

These are not Belgium tourists they are men captured on the field of battle or in rare circumstances in operations.

Some of them were turned in for bounty by whatever Afghan peasant might have happened to have a grudge against them. Did you even know that? So now we're not only trusting the president's say-so, or the field commander's, but that of every Afghan peasant who wants money.

Good policy.

Curtis: "If you worry so much about the health and well being of detainees, perhaps you should try a little thought exercise. Try moving from the abstract to the personal by supposing that you and/or your family and loved ones were in imminent danger and that a detainee might have knowledge that would keep your family from harm. What would you be willing to do? Now, take that answer and apply it to the big picture. Don't worry, it is really OK to use harsh language and unpleasantries on that terrorist now, isn't it?"

How about applying that same scenario only having your child whisked off the street, denied access to an attorney and then put in an interrogation room with those same interrogators.

Obviously, some of the detainees were bad people, there's no disputing that. But there were probably plenty of innocent people who were tortured (and possibly killed) through these techniques. As someone who reads a Christian blog, how can you square the torturing and killing of innocents?

We are a nation of laws, a nation of standards. Torture, despite what Cheney says, has been shown time and again to only produce the results the tortured party suspects his interrogators want to hear. Cheney is free to lie all he wants about the results because he knows the CIA can never make the interrogations or their individual results public. Personally, I wouldn't trust him one bit. But what is more troubling is that some people reading this blog think it's okay for government officials to break the law. Were you as forgiving when Bill Clinton lied under oath?

Wow, the nonsense accumulates on this thread almost too fast to keep up with. Here's the short answer to JP's point, from Scott Horton, who's been tracking these issues closely:

The “prior investigation” canard. It looks like the favorite talking point emerging for torture apologists (like David Ignatius) is that the CIA cases were already examined by career prosecutors who decided not to take any action. But this claim is false. Although these cases were enshrouded in extraordinary secrecy from the outset, I closely studied their management and conducted a number of interviews with Justice personnel who were involved; I also worked with the House Judiciary Committee in its review of the matter. The cases were referred by Helgerson to the Justice Department, which in turn passed them to the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Paul J. McNulty. (This U.S. attorney’s office was the most highly politicized in the entire U.S. attorneys system, and McNulty was ultimately promoted to the office of deputy attorney general and then resigned amidst accusations of misconduct involving the politicization of the Justice Department.) McNulty’s office acted as a sort of “dead letter office” for troublesome torture allegations. The suggestion that there was an active investigation is laughable. No grand jury was impaneled or testimony taken, and contrary to Ignatius’s claims no decision was taken not to prosecute. What happened instead was inaction. Why? If the cases had been pressed, the CIA personnel involved would have immediately implicated high-level Bush Administration officials. The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility has examined the handling of these cases and has confirmed that no serious investigation ever occurred. So the suggestion that Holder is now somehow undermining or second-guessing the decision of career prosecutors is preposterous.

Incidentally, the low-level investigation the Justice Department has now started is evidently one that Obama himself doesn't want, as he's repeatedly said in public ("looking forward, not back," blah blah blah). On these issues, the righties here will be pleased to know, Obama is no "liberal." Which is why they should be a little worried that if the lawless powers that Bush and Cheney claimed aren't repudiated, he'll be tempted to use them at some point too.

KM,

You said it perfectly. To your comments I would add that the Geneva Conventions DO NOT PROTECT these men AT ALL. The are literally outlaws-men whose heinousness place them outside of the protection of the law as set down by those Conventions.

I lost three friends in the Towers on 9/11. I watched the second plane hit from my car a few miles away. That's the one that vaporized those friends. That toxic cloud from ground zero drifted over my home for months. Many firefighters and other first responders are beginning to succumb to the effects of the toxicity of Ground Zero. And the men 'tortured' by our government would have visited more on us, given the chance.

Perhaps his detractors might stop and consider that some of them are alive today and able to denounce him because of those enhanced interrogations. This isn't ethics in the abstract. It's life and death. I'd like to pin a medal on those interrogators. Cheney and company have the gratitude of most New Yorkers.

Perhaps his detractors might stop and consider that some of them are alive today and able to denounce him because of those enhanced interrogations.

Prove it, Gerard. I expect that you can't because any such proof is hidden under the veil of executive privilege (or has long since been destroyed).

Cheney and company have the gratitude of most New Yorkers.

The ones that do not understand the rule of law, perhaps.

"You and your ilk want to err on the side of Americans dieing first and then going after the perpetrators"

Less people would die in America if we enforced traffic laws and maintained our roads better

traffic deaths 2001 - 37,862
9/11 - 2,993

trying to keep perspective

AML, I say the following without anger or rancor, but that it needs to be asked: How would your sleeping habits change if you'd been waterboarded, had your family threatened, been deprived of sleep or basic sanitation for days on end?

Some permanent damage is not visible to the naked eye.

Franky,
No Im against torture, If you are talking about the Star Chamber, Iron Maiden, the Rack, or having to watch Nancy Pelosi give a speech in cases of Kidnapping, murber, tax evasion or anything else.
Simply, I am for waterboarding, not torture- all Navy Seals and most other special forces not to mention many police and firemen go through it every single month, or enhanced interogation methods against INDIVIDUALS

As opposed to the American hating posters on this board and the New York times editorial board, I am against waiting until there are American bodies in the streets that can be prevented, to react to foreign enemies, both State and non-state sponsored.

The post cut off a lot of my previous post.

It should have said"

or enhanced interrogation methods aginst INDIVIDUALS,ORGANIZATIONS, OR STATES THAT DECLARE WAR AGAINST THE UNITED STATES AND ATTEMPT TO BE SUCCESFUL IN THEIR GOAL.

and which detainees died "directly because of Cheney's policies", and under what circumstances?

Ah...another one of the willfully uninformed. If you can keep claiming that it never happened...then it never happened, right! Magic!

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1681676&rendertype=table&id=T1

Afghanistan Detainee Torture Deaths
Name, Age Location of Detainer/Date Event History
Name unknown[17] Prior to September 2002 Murder conspiracy and obstruction of justice; case closed
1 Mullah Habibullah (also known as Habib Ullah), ∼30[33,41] Bagram, December 4, 2002; US Army Dr. Ingwerson did the autopsy on December 6–8, 2002 and promptly signed a death certificate finding homicide by “Pulmonary embolism due to blunt force injury to the legs.” Defense Department issued false report of natural death and when pressed by media, issued the death certificate in May 2004. Admiral Church identified this case as one in which medical personnel may have attempted to misrepresent the circumstances of death, possibly in an effort to disguise detainee abuse. Prosecution under way.
2 Dilawar, 22[33,42] Bagram, December 10, 2002 Dr. Rouse did the autopsy on December 13, 2002; signed the preliminary copy on December 13, 2003; and did not finalize the death certificate on May 20, 2004 just before the Pentagon press conference. The autopsy attributed the death to a homicide by “Blunt force injuries to lower extremities complicating coronary artery disease.” Defense Department issued false report of natural death, and when pressed by media, issued the death certificate in May 2004. The Defense Department has issued 2 different death certificates on this person. Admiral Church identified this case as one in which medical personnel may have attempted to misrepresent the circumstances of death, possibly in an effort to disguise detainee abuse.
3 Jamal Naser[28,43] Gardez, Special Forces, March 2003 Severely beaten unregistered detainee. On September 20, 2004, the US Army confirmed that it was opening an inquiry into the death.
4 Abdul Wali[28,44] Asadadad Base, Kunar, June 21, 2003 No autopsy performed. Cursory exam in the dark by Afghan officials. Former CIA contractor and special operations soldier charged with assault by beating Mr. Wali with a flashlight.
5 Abdul Wahid[45] Bagram, November 6, 2003 Dr. Kathleen Ingwersen did the autopsy, signed, and finalized the death certificate on November 13, 2003. She concluded that he had died of a homicide from “Multiple blunt force injuries complicated by probable rhabdomyolysis [extensive crush injuries of the muscles].” The Pentagon released the death certificate in May 2004.
6 Sher Mohammad Khan[17] September 24, 2004 Military officials told journalist that he had died of a heart attack within hours of being taken into custody. Autopsy not released. Family retrieved the bruised body.
Iraq Detainee Torture Deaths
1 Radi Nu'ma[27,46] British forces, Basra, May 8, 2003 UK soldiers delivered a note to house, “Radi Nu'ma suffered a heart attack while we were asking him questions about his son. We took him to the hospital.” Family were told at the hospital that no person of that name existed.
Body found in morgue. RMP had delivered unidentified corpse on May 8 and told staff that cause of death was a heart attack, but did not give any other historical or identifying information.
2 Nagen Sadoon Hatab[47–50] US Marines Camp Whitehorse, June 6, 2003 The base commander testified that a medic said that Hatab was “faking” or had a “mild heart attack” when seen 6 hours before death. Autopsy showed that he had been strangled, and the hyoid bone (wishbone) in his neck had been crushed when a soldier dragged him by the throat. However, the case fell apart when the Armed Forces lost the pathology specimens (see text). The Defense Department says that the broken bones came from bouncing the body in a Humvee after death. Dr. Kathleen Ingwersen did the autopsy, signed, and finalized the death certificate on June 10, 2003.
3 Dilar Dababa[25] Secret center, Baghdad, June 13, 2003 There are several accounts of his traumatic death. Dr. Elizabeth Rouse did an autopsy on June 17, 2003, and signed the death certificate as a homicide by “Closed head injury with a cortical brain contusion and subdural hematoma.” However, she did not finalize the death certificate until May 14, 2004.
4 Baha Mousa[10,50] Al Hakima, Basra, September 13, 2003 A 28-year-old prisoner was heard screaming and calling for assistance. Death certificate said that cause of death was “cardio-respiratory arrest-asphyxia”; cause unknown. Lacerations, broken ribs, and a broken nose were not noted on the death certificate (seen by ICRC, which remains classified), although such were noted by witnesses who saw the body.
5 Mohamed Taiq Zaid[51] United States, Iraq, August 22, 2003 The sparsely documented investigation simply says that he was found lying on the ground at a detention center with heat stroke. Autopsy and death certificate: “Heat related. Accidental death.” Dr. Michael Smith performed the autopsy and signed the death certificate on October 23, 2003 but did not finalize the death certificate until May 12, 2004. This case is now being challenged as a possible abuse by heat exposure without providing water and shelter.
6 Obeed Hethere Radad[52] US Army, Tikrit, September 11, 2003 Shot to death by a guard. The Army commander waited 4 days before notifying Army criminal investigators of the homicide. During this time, the base conducted a local hearing that charged a soldier with voluntary manslaughter and demoted and discharged him, thereby preempting the risk that he would face a more serious court martial.
7 Baha Dawud Al-Maliki[52–55] British forces, Basra, September 14, 2003 Press reports and Amnesty International report signs of severe beating, and death certificate says asphyxia.
Body given to family. Investigation by the British is pending.
8 Kefah [Kifah] Taha[54] British forces, Basra, September 17, 2003 Died after 3 days in British custody in Basra in September. Major James Ralph, ICU consultant at the British Military Field Hospital at Shaibah, wrote, “admitted to our facility at 22:40 hours on 16 September. It appears he was assaulted approximately 72 hours ago and sustained severe bruising to his upper abdomen, right side of chest, left forearms and left upper inner thigh…. acute renal failure.” Died. Investigation pending.
9 Mon Adel Al-Jamadi[33,56,57] CIA/SEALS, Abu Ghraib, November 4, 2003 Ghost prisoner beaten to death. An Iraqi medical doctor working with the United States in Abu Ghraib confirmed Mr. Al-Jamadi's death. The corpse was packed in ice overnight to try to alter the perceived time of death. The next day, a medic inserted an IV in the corpse's arm and took it out of prison on a gurney as if he was ill. Other interrogators were told that he had died of a heart attack. Death certificate, based on autopsy: “blunt force injuries complicated by compromised respiration.” Dr. Jerry Hodges did the autopsy November 9, 2003 and signed the death certificate the same day. However, he did not finalize the death certificate until May 13, 2004. Admiral Church identified this case as one in which medical personnel may have attempted to misrepresent the circumstances of death, possibly in an effort to disguise detainee abuse.
10 Abed Hamed Mowhoush[58–61] CIA/US Army, Qaim, November 26, 2003 Iraqi General Mowhoush was put headfirst into a sleeping bag while being rolled back to stomach; then an interrogator sat on him. On November 27, 2003, the military surgeon and the Pentagon claimed that he had died of natural causes. Dr. Michael Smith did an autopsy on December 2 and signed the death certificate as a homicidal death by asphyxia on December 2, 2003. However, he did not finalize the death certificate until May 12, 2004, as press inquiries were demanding a clearer account of what the Defense Department had been claiming was a natural death. Charges will be filed against the military intelligence officers.
11 Fashad Mohamed[62] US SEALS, Mosul, April 5, 2004 Beaten by SEAL TEAM 7, interrogated, and allowed to sleep and did not wake up. Autopsy and death certificate by Dr. Elizabeth Rouse. She signed it as results “Pending” on April 26." On May 14, she signed a final copy with no further revisions.

Of course, we all know that beating people with brown skins to death doesn't really count, right?

"Would everyone please read Rod's post once again."

No, the post doesn't bear rereading. it's very title is absurd.

"No, the post doesn't bear rereading. it's very title is absurd."

Yes, the actions of the Dear Leader can not questioned.

When did Code Pink Take over this borad. Don't you have the Daily Kos and whichever project Janeane Garofalo is working on this month.
Your hatred for Haliburton , blackwater and all things Bush has left you impotent and unable to defend yourself.

Rod:

Here you have the perfect synthesis of the perpetual national security state, authoritarianism and the culture war all in one, saliva flecked hateful screed. All aimed right at you, sadly.

It's beautiful, in a train wreck kind of way.

I wonder if "borad" is in any way similar in meaning to that guy at a tea party carrying a sign that said "Morans".

KM -

You wrote: "Simply, I am for waterboarding, not torture- all Navy Seals and most other special forces not to mention many police and firemen go through it every single month, or enhanced interogation methods against INDIVIDUALS"

Sadly, you are badly misinformed. Waterboarding is, and has always been, torture. It was used during the Spanish Inquistion, during WWI, during WWII, and the USA was always against it.

Until the Bush Administration....

And you're defending it.

Sad actually.

Where's the morality in torture? How can you be certain the person you're torturing is truly guilty of anything?

AML
There seems to be a very foggy definition of "torture" floating around. Scaring and lying to detainees? Water-boarding and sleep-deprivation? Extremely unpleasant, yes. Torture? Ha! Our military are trained using these techniques. Where has anyone been permanently damaged or killed using these techniques?

You know, Rod's right. We do need to just out and out call people 'mentally retarded' when they clearly are.

Approximately 100 people died in US custody.

But, hey, a quote:
Male detainee died while in U.S. custody. The details surrounding the circumstances at the time of death are classified. Cause of death: Asphyxia due to smothering and chest compression. Manner of Death: Homicide. Significant findings of the autopsy included rib fractures and numerous bruises, some of which were patterned due to impacts with a blunt object. DOD 003329 refers to this case as "1 blunt force trauma and choking; died during interrogation." DOD 003325 refers to this case with note "Q[uestioned] by MI [Military Intelligence], died during interrogation."

Smothered and beaten to death while being questioned. Hrm. Unless assailants burst in from outside and attacked him while he was being questioned, I am forced to consider the idea that it was us who smothered and beat him.

But read the list yourself.

And please notice all the 'atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease', which actually means 'stressed the person out so much he died of heart failure'. Normally that disease is, and I quote wikipedia, 'chronic, slowly progressive and cumulative', not something that dozens of random people would just die of. Same with the other types of heart failure. Hearts just don't randomly fail.

No, those heart failures happen because of 'stress positions' and 'sleep deprivation', those techniques you, and hell, even the media, don't even think are 'torture', cause they don't cause any 'lasting harm'....except eventually giving people heart failure, but, hey, who needs a functioning heart, and heart failure doesn't leave any marks so we can all pretend it's 'natural'.

What are the torture techniques of the enemy?

I think we've been hearing those come out over the last few years, haven't we?

Oh, wait, you think they enemy is a tiny group of people somewhere else who killed some Americans, as opposed to the American leadership that decided to destroy this country by throwing away the rule of law and torturing people.

I have met the enemy, and he is you, not them.

I can find an Enterprise Inst. Fellow to refute. Of course there is a lefty that agrees with you.

And of course you can find a EAI hack to do your thinking for you. Dr Pavlov is ringing his bell. Go get your treat. Good fellow.

KM, I'm not quoting that professor for his legal analysis, but just because he gives a convenient summary of relevant facts -- including what the Administration was arguing -- that were widely reported in many sources. Read the Bush Administration's filings in the Supreme Court's detainee cases (not to mention the Bybee / Yoo memos) and see if he's mischaracterizing them. He isn't. And by the way, there were lawyers who were NOT liberals by any stretch of the imagination -- Jack Goldsmith, for instance, who worked in the Bush Justice Department -- who also believed the Administration's positions on these issues was lawless and wrong. Goldsmith rescinded the memos that set forth some of those positions, but Cheney continues to defend them to this day.

I have commented on several threads under the name KM and just want to make sure that no one thinks that this other KM is me! I am the socialist, Canadian, health care reform loving one so you probably won't mix us up:)

I recently read something (I've no recollection where) about one of the men who was in charge of interrogating German prisoners of war in Great Britain during WWII. Interestingly, it said that this gentleman was able to conduct very effective interrogations without the use or torture, or the so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" practiced by the Bush Administration.

While I have no sympathy for terrorists, if any Administration or authority is able to torture them, they are able to torture anyone, for any reason, or no reason at all. I experience the desire for revenge as much as the next person, but, ultimately, torture is not about gaining information as much as it is about, in part, vengeance (and in part about chicken-hawks such as Cheney imitating strength by trying to look like the biggest bad*ss on the block).

I happen to think Dick Cheney is a bad man, but I think it is obvious that he is rationalizing and will continue to rationalize his actions.

I am astonished that conservatives who endlessly call for small government never the less support the expansion of executive power that the torture program involved.

I am astonished that conservatives who by and large favor a pro life position support torture as an acceptable moral position.

I am astonished that conservatives who seem to be concerned about "socialism" never the less have no concern that the former Vice President does not believe that he or the government is bound by law.

I read of two detainees who were accepted by the Portugese - and were released because there was NO evidence they had done anything wrong or had any connection to terrorism.

Rod - you are taking a lot of heat on this from your fellow conservatives which is very sad but I applaud you for your courage in going the way your conscience dictates.

By abandoning our moral values the US creates terrorism - we make the liklihood of more attacks greater because we give them more reasons to hate us. Torture is morally wrong and illegal. I am disapointed that Obama is not vigorously investigating this deplorable behavior. Cheney is disgusting.

Amen, Celia.

Well said, Celia.

What also seems beyond the comprehension of those who support torture is that the people tortured were merely suspects. They were not known terrorists, just people who ended up in US custody. They were tortured (or were candidates for torture) solely because they were behind bars. Do we punish people before we even determine their giult? The Cheney answer is Yes.

We are done as Nation if my vary rational mainstream world view Until Bush-derangment disorder came along.

Is this supposed to be stream of consciousness performance art?

Here is an even more scathing review of the new "Holderized" policies for interrogating people who have declared war against us and are working on fulfilling their goal of killing Americans. Not drug dealers, kidnappers, or bank robbers, but men who are bent on the destruction of our nation.

This link, though, is from that right-wing extremest paper The Wall Street Journal. It can't be trusted, they are pro, gasp, profits.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203706604574377130844113174.html#mod=todays_us_nonsub_weekendjournal

"Whatever it takes is OK with me as we are truly at war whether some of us wish to acknowledge that or not."

To the extent that this becomes the accepted rule in our nation, then the terrorists have won, for they have destroyed the underpinnings of our freedoms, our society, and our way of life.

Tom,

Not sure how suppporting pouring water down the nose of the Mastermind of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and getting actionable intel has anything what so ever to do with a psychopathic murderer like Timothy McVey. I, nor anyone that is from this side of the argument on this board has ever defended anything other than interrogation methods used on Foreign Enemy combatants of the United States during wartime to save Americans from being killed. Period.

I bet Honest Abe would come down on our side. I mean that's not nearly as far out there as say... suspending Habeas Corpus during wartime.

.....men who are bent on the destruction of our nation.

Except the ones who weren't. KM, are you even aware that something like 90% -- for the math-challeneged, that's the overwhelming majority -- of the people picked up and imprisoned at Abu Ghraib were innocent, according to the commanding general there? Or that even the Bush administration eventually released a bunch of detainees from Guatanamo Bay, albeit after holding them for years when they'd done nothing wrong? Or that Army Col. Lawrence Wilkinson, Colin Powell's top aide, said that the military's sweeps picked up many innocent bystanders and sent them to Guantanamo, including some still being held as of this year? Or that those whose cases are finally being reviewed under habeas petitions (which of course Bush and Cheney fought hard against) are now being freed for lack of evidence? Or that the latest to be sent abroad (into the custody of Portugal) were immediately freed on arrival, because there's no reason to think they're dangerous or guilty of anything?

Do you understand the difference between suspicion and guilt? They're two different words -- check a dictionary on that if you don't believe me.

CFK,
The Harper's article you have quoted reinforces my point. There is so much hand-waving, opinion, insinuation and name-dropping it reads as a partisan insider piece rather than a serious analysis- or a good read. KM is right. For every Harpers story you can find a Weekly Standard piece, and we can go around and around with "my expert says....," or "I get my information from..." My central point was, and still is, that the (outcome)of the US legal process wasn't good enough for the morally superior Liberal wing of the Democratic party.
Just as the Ancien Regime was unacceptable to the enlightened liberal philosophes, the Bush regime and the CIA is unacceptable to the enlightened, intellectually and morally superior liberal Obamasophes. The liberals want to redefine torture so they can legally prosecute conservatives. They do this so they can rehape society in their own image. See, the liberal mind believes that the universe is a text and a "conversation." Just win the argument and you can change the world. It worked in France.

Torturing detainees got us the "intel" that Iraq had WMDs and al-Qaeda connections, which led to the pointless deaths of over 4,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. Our use of torture thus killed far more Americans than any actual terrorist attack. Then again, I don't think neocons care about torture's uselessness any more than they care about its evil or un-Americanness. They just love it as a political tactic. To them, it pisses off all the right people. It's not an actual policy, it's a bumper sticker.

My central point was, and still is, that the (outcome)of the US legal process wasn't good enough for the morally superior Liberal wing of the Democratic party.

Absurd -- there's been no review under any "legal process." That's the whole point. That's what Cheney and Bush explicitly fought against; they believed the president's decisions should not be subject to "legal process." As I just said to KM, the fact that you delude yourself into thinking otherwise means that you actually disagree with their position even as you claim to defend it.

And as to torture being "redefined," the definitions that count waterboarding, sleep deprivation, beatings and the other techniques the CIA used as "torture" are the American government's own definitions as applied when it denounces the practices of other regimes, when it makes rules for its own miliary personnel and when it's conducted torture prosecutions in the past. It was that notorious liberal Ronald Reagan who signed the U.S. Convention against Torture, and then issued a statement of his own explaining that it outlawed cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of any kind.

So today's liberals are applying Reagan's, the military's and the State Department's own definitions. The only "redefinitions" came from Bush, Cheney, Yoo and company, who have evidently succeeded at convincing the gullible among us that black is actually white.

Charley,

I know what I support, don't need you to clarify it for me. What you describe is an issue for you, some nuanced legal bS. I do not, for instance, believe in torturing Dutch Cartoonist like our enemies do.
I do not think waterboarding or hurting someones self-esteem is torture. the left's nuanced view makes raising ones voice at a detainee torture. These are serious times that deserve serious decisions not ACLU attorneys.

Stop changing the definition of torture. Anything above verbal questioning is not torture. I hope they make these guys uncomfortable extremely uncomfortable. As the Washington Post points out, the "enhanced interrogation methods" worked. Not the opposite which is constantly parroted. Unlike our enemies and their rusty kitchen knifes that would be used on you in a second by the jihadists, I am not for torture. I just don't subscribe to this new ever sliding definition that has evolved for the sole purpose to "get" Bush-cheney, not to get the jihadist that are still hellbent on destroying Western Civ.

You lefties still see Bush-cheney as the enemy not the Jihadists. Just Remeber this issue 20 years from now. It will seem silly in retrospect.

One more thought before getting back to my actual job. This discussion has been revealing, because I'm finally becoming aware that some on the right who defend the U.S. torture regime -- like our various initialed friends here (JP, KM, AML, etc.) -- probably just don't realize what that regime consisted of or how people like Cheney have been justifying it. In their blissful ignorance, they probably assume that the Cheneyite position is something milder and less radical than it is. Maybe they just can't believe that American officials would take the kinds of positions that Bush took, at least until '05 or '06, and that Cheney continues to take to this day.

So here's a handy summary of those positions, as drawn from the Bush administration's arguments in court, the Justice Department's torture memos, and various public statements. Cheney believes that:

1. The president has total authority, subject to no review by any court, commission or anyone else, to decide to whom the Geneva Conventions -- a treaty obligation of the United States -- applies and in what circumstances.

2. The president has similarly total, unreviewable authority to arrest and detain anyone, for any period of time, on any grounds the president thinks may be in America's national-security interest. He himself defines what counts as "security" and at how many removes from actual military operations the suspect in question may be. (Thus, for instance, if decides that criticism of himself is enough to cast suspicion on someone, he may have that person detained without the right to petition a court to review the grounds of his imprisonment.)

3. The president's prisoners can include not just foreigners or those captured "on the battlefield" or while bearing arms, but anyone picked up anywhere, including U.S. citizens and/or people arrested within the borders of the United States.

4. Prisoners can also include teenagers as young as 14, based on claims of foreigners that they had some kind of terrorist involvement when they were as young as 11. (Actual case, I'm not making this up.)

5. While detained, prisoners can be held incommunicado and/or at secret locations and denied access to counsel.

6. They can also be subjected to treatments that the United States government itself has historically defined as torture. CIA agents or contractors who inflict such treatment should have total immunity from further investigation or prosecution in all cases, even if a prisoner dies as a result of it.

7. If any formal proceeding is ever brought against a prisoner, he may be subject to any penalty, including death, based on evidence he is not allowed to see or rebut, and/or based on statements extracted from him, or from someone else, under the treatment methods mentioned in #6.

8. Meanwhile, the president has unreviewable authority to order the wiretapping of anyone he deems a threat for any reason, without having to submit the order, even after the fact, to review even by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court. (Again, if the president decided that criticism of the president itself posed some kind of security threat, however indirectly, then he could order wiretapping on that basis, and no judge or court would have a right to know that he had even done it.)

I'm probably forgetting a point or two, but these are all among the positions that Cheney and his cronies have taken and that the Bush administration defended at least for a time, until the Supreme Court finally started weighing in. We can save some time in future discussions like this one if we just start with these propositions and see who's willing to defend them. As I said earlier, if you're not willing to, then you actually disagree at least with Cheney and probably with Bush, because these have been their positions. And, also as I said earlier, if you defend these propositions you should do so in the full knowledge that "the president" referred to in them -- and therefore the one who would now be in a position to use these powers as he sees fit -- is not Bush, but one Barack Hussein Obama. Be sure you're OK with that before you try to tell us how great Dick Cheney and his ideas about torture are.

I do not think waterboarding is torture

Good thing your arbitration is unnecessary. Waterboarding has been recognized as torture for about a thousand years, and then approximately last Thursday Dick Cheney told a lie about it and you fell right for it.

Since liberals don't like the the regime, they redefine "process" just as they will redefine "torture" and "cruel and unusual" or at least, let the UN define it for them when it suits their schemes.

Again -- since apparently you missed this point above -- I and other critics have been relying on the U.S. government's OWN definitions, not the UN's. I realize that misrepresenting other's positions is essential to the Cheneyite project, but see if you can at least not do it when that position has been carefully stated just moments before.

If you guys spent half the mental energy defending us as you do the jihadist we would be the safest country in the world. For you it will always be Blame America First.

What did Cheney gain by this, NOTHING, except protecting americans from Foreign enemies. Oh , and a bunch of Blackwater/Haliburton/Exxon stock options.

During one of your hate/filled apoplectic tirads, have ever paused for a mili-second to say thanks, for protecting us from attacks for the 71/2 years following 911.

As someone mentioned up thread, the Geneva Convention does NOT cover terrorists.

I see that the nonsensical remarks are just not going to stop on this thread. They've all been refuted already, and it's obviously useless, but OK, here's one last try:

The issue is not whether the Geneva Conventions cover "terrorists." The issues include: whether the people detained were in fact terrorists (U.S. government officials themselves have admitted that large numbers of them weren't); whether the Bush Administration implemented the requirements of Geneva that there be some credible process for distinguishing between unlawful and lawful combatants, since Geneva DOES protect the latter (there was no such process); and whether other obligations and laws of the United States were violated, like the Convention Against Torture and the federal statutes implementing it (since Geneva isn't the only relevant set of requirements here). If you're not addressing those issues, then you're not saying anything relevant to the actual discussions underway either here or in the larger public realm.

Like seven posts in this thread have all pointed to documented sources where many of our "suspected terrorists" turned out to be INNOCENT. No acknowledgment from the Cheney cult, who still wants them all tortured and murdered anyway, because their king on this Earth so decreed.

"I can't believe you cannot see the difference between innocent life and not guilty life" I don't get that either. I don't know if they don't see the difference or they don't care.

JerryS,

My position is that we should do everything possible to make sure no innocent person is locked up, period. Are there some innocent people locked up in American prisons? of course there are. Are there some innocent people locked up as terrorists in Cuba, no doubt there are. The question is, are we "knowingly" locking up innocent people, either in American prisons or in Cuba. I think the commonsense answer to that is NO.

Charles,

I have no problem answering your statement, however, your comment was neither relevant to Rob's original post, nor to the comment I was addressing by Cecelia.

I have a question for all the people here worried about "innocent" suspected terrorists and the like.

Are you just as upset at the Obama administrations use of drone aircraft in Afghanistan which IS killing innocent men, women, and children, or is it just the Bush "war crimes' you're concerned with?

As someone mentioned up thread, the Geneva Convention does NOT cover terrorists.

So...everybody arrested is automatically a terrorist? No review? (Cheney fought tooth and nail to eliminate reviews) No question on whether his neighbor had a grudge and turned him in? (happened a lot in Iraq...best way to get rid of your Sunni neighbor was to drop a dime on him to the Army. Voila! No more neighbor!) How about the bounties we paid to Afghan warlords? Think they didn't pull a few "extras" out of the hills for hard cash?

Torture them all, and we can find out later. Neat, easy, and a few dead sand n*****s along the way is a small price for feeling safe at home, right? Like, who cares that we beat an Afghani taxi driver to death at Bagram, and that his legs were turned into fibrous mush as he screamed all night. He had it coming for something, right? I mean, only "librul" Blackwater/Haliburton haters care about silly things like morals and "right or wrong" when dealing with lighting up a crowd of pedestrians with automatic weapons, or shooting nearby cars and their passengers (on film) and posting it online with a soundtrack. Fun stuff!

I have seen the obscene rantings of your sort before. Every comment thread where a cop tazes a pregnant woman or a child, or shoots a prone suspect in the back has the same sadism-by-proxy authoritarian malevolent rants. Your sort has been behind every right wing (and a few left wing) dictatorship from Pinochet to Mussolini. The State and police power is your excuse to harm others. You revel when the blood flows...because you know they had it coming...and you wish(often) that you could be the one dishing it out.

I see it at Patterico and any newspaper story that deals with torture or malfeasance. Some badly retarded deaf and dumb black guy has stomach cramps at a store restroom in Mobile? Taze him, hit him with pepper spray and try to charge him for resisting arrest for...staying in the bathroom too long! He has it coming!
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/135089.html

I took an oath to protect the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Right now...KM and his compatriots look an awful lot like just that. Frightened, willfully ignorant and hateful people who will destroy our system of justice just as Franklin and Jefferson warned us about repeatedly. I should apologize to Rod for making this personal on his blog, yet I am not really willing to entertain the cheerleaders of criminal torture and murder with politeness. Vile actions and their abettors cannot be allowed to go unchallenged.

Bob Jones -

I'm sick over Obama's escalation in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, we're killing too many civilians. That's a fact.

I'm also angry at Obama for his refusal to overturn the Bush era law which allows TSA to take your laptop, download the contents, and keep the contents, with no warrant or approval from any judge.

I'm amazed that so many men and women who want smaller government are supportive of ever-increasing powers for one man or office.

Back to Rod's original concerns with the "road to tyranny" - I, too, share this concern. For this reason, last fall I purchased additional magazines and several hundred rounds of additional ammo for my SKS (evil black "assault" rifle for those of you who don't know). After Obama's election, I further added an AR-15. More mags and ammo for that will follow as the budget permits. The way I see things, an armed citizenry is the best possible defense against an out of control government. Of course, I'm sure the bleating of the sheeple here on this board will be loud and long as it has been for most of this topic.

We have much more to fear from our inability to wean ourselves from a government guilty of confiscatory taxation and one which continues to pile on unsustainable programs than we do from those policies which subject a relatively small number of non-citizens to pain and discomfort.

Now now, everyone just settle down. Obama is in charge now and he'll fix everything

kt, kt, please stop! I'm going to die asphyxiated by straw!!

I suppose you're with armchair pessimist, who confesses to being ready to commit a felony just to make sure Cheney gets a not guilty verdict in a hypothetical trial. Talk about kindred spirits...

celtic dragon critter said:

"Dresden"

Hey, you left out Hiroshima and Nagasaki!

CDC, a question for you. Do you think Truman was a war criminal?

Re: CDC, a question for you. Do you think Truman was a war criminal?

Wrong question. The proper question is, "Do you think the obliteration of Hiroshima was a war crime?"

And the answer is Yes.

Well, Hector, I have much sympathy for your POV, but you do not phrase the question properly.

Given that Truman had a choice between tens or hundreds of thousands of deaths (including Japanese civilians) via a conventional invasion of the island, and demonstrating to the Japanese leaders that Truman can achieve victory without one American soldier setting foot on the island, which act of war should he have chosen?

Do note, please, that the Allies were already fire-bombing Japan fiercely and with many civilian casualties, with Japan showing no evidence of being willing to surrender.

I would strongly suggest you read the appendices in Army Field Manual FM 3-24. That noted liberal Petraeus opposes torture also and wants to apply the Geneva Conventions to all prisoners.

Just a point of reference for discussion, there remains no evidence, other than the words of some anonymous people plus Cheney and his staff, that torture produced useable intel. There is testimony from interrogators and from FBI people that they had gotten all the available intel from KSM.

Lastly, it should be noted that we actually began to have real success in Iraq once we gave up torture and AQ did not. The intelligence one gathers from torture is always suspect and in asymmetrical wars it nets lots of new enemies.

Steve

Lastly, it should be noted that we actually began to have real success in Iraq once we gave up torture and AQ did not. The intelligence one gathers from torture is always suspect and in asymmetrical wars it nets lots of new enemies.

Pretty much, which is why professionals study David Galula

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Galula

and the Walter Mitty wannabes have "24" inspired testosterone fantasies about putting a 1/4 inch drill bit through a terrorist's knee cap and saving Los Angeles.

"there remains no evidence, other than the words of some anonymous people plus Cheney and his staff, that torture produced useable intel."

That's not "no evidence". That's evidence you arbitrarily choose to ignore.

Left unsaid by the critics of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is how many millions of Japanese civilians would have died from the famine that was only narrowly averted after the surrender; not to mention how many Japanese would have died in the aftermath of an invasion.

World War II was a war against countries, not a rhetorical construct against a concept. The sooner we realize that difference, the sooner we'll understand how much damage the Bush/Cheney view has done to the United States, and more importantly, the world's fight against Bin Laden and his allies.

JP:

WHat is most fascinating about your mindset is the ease with which you transfer your firmly-fixed beliefs to those who are your ideological opponents. You impute to "liberals" the exact ideoligical consistency that you demonstrate in your posts.

"OK, kt, would you at least agree that we're better off if we actually go after THAT ENEMY, not a bunch of other people who aren't that enemy, never were that enemy, and apparently didn't even have any relationship to that enemy?"

uh, who do you think we were fighting in Iraq? do you think only Iraqis fought in Iraq? do you think that only weapons made in Iraq, or paid for by Iraqis, were used against Americans in Iraq? You think Bin Laden's involvement in Iraq stopped at his nightly perusal of BBC World? If so, I guess you believe foreign countries are like shoeboxes with little mice in them, with the lids on, so the mice can't get out of their little shoeboxes ....

Steve:

You are simply communicating on a level that kt does not understand. kt does sound bites and unthinking, reflexive nationalistic authoritarianism. You would better spend your time at Abu Muqawama or Small Wars Journal with people who actually read the issues and know what they...and you...are talking about. I appreciate your intelligent responses, but I am afraid they are wasted on the sorts of "geniuses" who call Rod Dreher a "Code Pink Librul" for not being a mindless partisan. In the end, tribal partisan identification is all they have left, I'm afraid to say.

Sad, really, that the party of Reagan and Goldwater has come to this.

I think it's nice that many here can claim the moral high ground and say that all instances of torture are wrong. However, the world is not so black and white. For example, I agree with this comment from someone on another blog discussing this same issue:

"Torture works and there are easily conceivable circumstances (indeed there already have been) where it can be used sparingly and yet save large numbers of Americans. Anyone who's willing to say they wouldn't condone its use under any circumstance is either lying to themselves or has no imagination. Either way, they have no business being responsible for the defense of this country. It's an extraordinarily dangerous technique that threatens moral corruption, but so does war and international politics in general. In that context, the outrage over torture is completely arbitrary and selective."

Not too long ago I read an article somewhere on what would happen if a nuclear bomb was detonated high above the USA in the center of the Country. Basically, since EVERYTHING today is run by computers (and the bomb would effectively wipe out all communication), it would mean the death of millions and millions of Americans. Now, if we were able to stop something like this from happening because someone was waterboarded, I don't really see a problem with this...and believe me, if and when it's possible for Islamic extremists to do such a thing, they will.

Your problem, Bob, is that you have entirely too much imagination. Only under imaginary, "24"-ized circumstances does torture yield truth. In reality, in perpetuity, torture is only ever actually useful for obtaining false but politically useful "confessions." It was as true for the Inquisition's "hidden Jews" as for the Bolsheviks' "counterrevolutionaries" as for the neocons' "Iraqi WMDs". It cannot be defended from utility, or in any other manner. There are no "ticking timebombs."

As for a nuclear bomb destroying America, we lived with Soviet nukes fully capable of obliterating us for the better part of half a century. How much torture did we use then? Wasn't that right when Reagan signed the anti-torture treaty?

'In reality, in perpetuity, torture is only ever actually useful for obtaining false but politically useful "confessions." '

"in perpetuity"?! cool, we have an omniscient commenter on the board. tell us more, o seer of truth.

Celtic - "I own an SKS, specifically a Chinese PLA modified version that accepts unaltered 30 round Kalashnikov magazines. It isn't "black" or particularly evil looking(unless you attach the bayonet...which does look nasty), so I assume you have modified yours with after market accessories."

My SKS, which I've owned for about 20 years, is a very fine 1954 Tula Arsenal (Soviet Union) factory refurb. I originally acquired it when I was able to afford a Federal Firearms License. Unfortunately, the Clintonistas dramatically raised the cost of renewing licenses with the express intent of reducing the number of license holders like me who basically just had one for a hobby. So, I have owned it and several other semiautomatic weapons for many years going back to Reagan. With the current regime change, I've become motivated to remove the original bayonet and furniture (which are carefully stowed away for collector value purposes) and replaced them with the latest "black" enhancements/improvements.

It is abundantly clear from reading this blog that many of you will never be able to rise above the level of ad hominem attacks and will persist in believing that you are somehow intellectually superior to those of us with whom you disagree. Informed discourse seems pointless. Ultimately, it is the knowledge of this irreconcilable difference in values and beliefs that lies at the heart of the urge to arm as it is certainly true that Mao was on to something when he wrote "political power grows from the barrel of a gun". I wish it were not so, but, there it is.

""Torture works"

Data going back to the Inquisition (they actually kept fairly decent records) shows that is does not work very well (Rejali et al.). Indeed, since this is a Christian blog in many ways we all know the example of the early Christians and how many of them successfully resisted torture. The biggest problem often lies in determining what is actually useful. Those being tortured often tell interrogators what they think is wanted rather than the truth. Data collected by torture has often been overrated. Couple this with historical success using conventional techniques, the two most successful interrogators from WWII did not torture, Sherwood Moran being the American (the German I would have to go to my blog to look up).

This is not to say it never works. It can occasionally yield information, but given that it is unreliable, there are other techniques which work, and it has considerable downsides, there is little reason to use it unless it is to deliberately terrorize the population. Looking at what AQI did in Iraq, that was how they used torture. This was one of the causes for the Sunnis turning against them.

"I do have to wonder why the standards for non-arrogance, communication and understanding are quite so high for America and quite so low for everyone else."

You have hit on, sort of, a key point made by David Galula who wrote the early work so much COIN is based upon. He said, roughly, the insurgent is judged by his words, the counterinsurgent by his actions. Admiral Mullen in my quote above echoes this sentiment. While it may seem unfair, war is not fair, it is about winning. Winning when you are in our position means living up to our values, a point made over and over by Gen. Petraeus. As we are transients in the part of the world where we now fight, it is important that we be seen as trustworthy and offering a real alternative to those we oppose.

Steve

Steve,

Excellent points! Good food for thought.

kt said What utter and complete BS. We have never set out to kill innocent civilians for the hell of it, Cecelia. How can you expect us to take you seriously, when you refuse to accept even the most basic facts?

I repeat - we have tortured and as a result of that torture killed, people who were NEVER charged with a crime, never tried for that crime and never given any opportunity to defend themselves. We violated our own laws, the binding international agreements we signed, we ignored the advice of the military to not torture because doing so put our own military personnel in danger and also turned friendly people into enemies. We did this well aware that the method by which these people came into our custody guaranteed that innocent people were included. So yes - we killed innocent civilians. Those are the basic facts.

Oh yeah - then there is the small matter of Blackwater - a paramilitary organization which we paid and sent to Iraq - and it appears they killed and raped civilians. And then made video of it and put it on You Tube.

In our rush to punish those who attacked us - we have sacrificed our freedoms and abandoned deeply held principles of law - freedoms and principles our forefathers fought and died to protect. There's a basic fact for you.

We have sacrificed the high moral ground - in our attempts to defeat a monster we are fast becoming a monster ourselves.

Fair enough, bradL. Clearly, long-term, things have usually worked out well for torture regimes. That, of course, is why the American Founders embraced torture and made a point of authorizing it in the Constitution, and why Lincoln ordered Generals Grant and Sherman to torture every Confederate they could get their hands on. It's also why, today, the Spanish Inquisition is still going strong, the Khmer Rouge rules southeast Asia, the Nazi Reich looks set to last for a thousand years, and the Soviet Empire remains the world's leading superpower even as the liberal democracies that refuse to torture are poor, pitiful, struggling backwaters.

I guess there's just no arguing with success.

"I agree with Sam Harris that if we are willing to wage modern warfare, we should be willing to engage in torture."

That would seem counter prevailing military thought. Again, as I noted above, read the Army Field Manual Appendices or The mission statements of Petraeus. Look at what McChrystal is putting out in his statements. Look at how it worked in practice. If you really think that, or Harris does, they should write it up and submit it for any of the many military publications. I only read a few, but have never seen that approach advocated.

Steve

Larry, it's fun to engage in 20-20 hindsight. However, while we second-guess the men who were responsible for making decisions that meant that many lives, we might consider that at the time they had no such luxury as we have here.

CFK -

"Well, we wouldn't really know, because the torture defenders here refuse to give it a try. As members of the faith-based community, they've mostly spent this thread defending what they think Cheney and Bush should have favored and what they wish the government had been doing, not what it's actually been doing and the actual positions that Cheney and Bush have taken. "Information" doesn't really seem to be in their repertoire."

In your arrogance, you presume too much.

"Then you tell me what legitimate reason Truman could have had for dropping the bombs, given that he had an offer of surrender in hand? The only condition the Japanese attached to the surrender was that they be allowed to keep their emperor, but because the surrender wasn't "unconditional" it was rejected."

Huh? Japan did not offer a surrender until after both bombs were dropped, and even then they would not offer an unconditional surrender. You will note that Japan still has an emperor .... (though one of the conditions the Allies imposed was that he deny his divinity)

Wow, reading the comments here is rather like being transported back to Autumn of 2002, when a close friend of mine, and a good liberal (note, I'm not a liberal ;-)) observed that we could justify almost anything to avoid "Saran gas in the Mall of America." She, of course, was not planning on seeing her kids pay the price for those justifications.

As for Hiroshima, yes, we did have a surrender offer before the bombing:http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v16/v16n3p-4_Weber.html

Sharon

Huh? Japan did not offer a surrender until after both bombs were dropped,

Simply not true. Roosevelt had an offer of surrender before he left for Yalta in January of 1945, months before the bombs were dropped. Even if didn't, there was no need for Truman to drop the bombs, Japan was thoroughly and completely beaten, she had no oil to fuel her planes, ships or basic industry, not enough food to feed the population, completely blockaded by the US Navy. Japan was beaten with absolutely no hope for even a token success. There was no need for a US invasion, so all the casualty figures being thrown around concerning what an invasion would cost are completely beside the point. Dropping the atomic bombs was a barbaric act with absolutely no justification. Those who opposed dropping them at the time, include both Dwight Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur, so it is hard to make a military necessity defense of the bombings.

You are right, I shouldn't have linked to the IHR article - I wasn't paying close attention, just citing a piece I'd seen several places. Yes, they are pigs ;-), and I don't want to associate with them.

That said, it is hardly the case that this is a holocaust denialist analysis - Barton Bernstein and Gav Alperevitz are both Jewish historians who take this position - that in the end, there's fairly compelling evidence that surrender negotiations were underway. Note, I'm not trying particularly to bolster Larry's position - while I'm no nuclear defender, I personally think that there was more uncertainty than Larry accounts for, and also that the nuclear bombing of Japan was as much about China and the Soviets as anything else. But Truman's own diary does seem to bear out the idea that diplomatic solutions were at least possible, and it is a mainstream historical idea that Japan was negotiating at the time.

Sharon

I find it interesting how the pro-torture side just completely ignored mine and celtic dragon critter's proof that about 100 people had died in our custody, with quite a lot of them tortured to death.

David, they ignored every relevant fact posted in this thread. They have to, because they're apparently unwilling actually to defend America's torture regime. What they do instead, apart from a lot of macho posturing, is defend a policy they make up in their heads that is not the one we actually got from Dick Cheney and others (as Cheney himself has made very clear if they'd listen), and then they defend its application in circumstances that are not those that actually existed, like the famous "ticking-time-bomb" scenario or a nuclear threat against an American city.

In fact, the U.S. was -- by its OWN past definitions -- torturing Afghan farmers and cab drivers who were turned in for bounty, who were never even suspected of directly threatening America, and most of whom we now know were guilty of exactly nothing. It killed dozens of them in the process, and yet all this was accompanied by demands that nobody have any power to review any of it or intervene in any way, even if (as I think is highly likely) at least some of the CIA spooks and contractors involved were not heroic martyrs for the cause of liberty, doing the dirty but necessary work that keeps us safe, but just sadistic creeps who got off on hurting people. But all that -- i.e. the reality of the situation -- is impossible to defend, so our wingnutty friends in effect just change the subject. Which I guess is the tribute that idiocy pays to virtue, or something. But it also points up why Obama is wrong about "looking forward" and why what we really need is a full airing of all the facts.

Your assumption that there are actually people who are "just sadistic creeps who got off on hurting people" is very difficult to verify or quantify.

Yeah, especially when there's no investigation, which of course is what Cheney and the other perps have been demanding. Kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy there.

We shouldn't make an effort to defend ourselves because some of the defenders are less than perfect?

Total straw man. Why are the Department of Defense, and its many top officers like Gen. Petraeus, anti-torture (sorry, "anti-enhanced interrogation") if we need torture/EI to defend ourselves? Do they just not know their jobs?

Besides, you know as well as I that most of the AG's agenda is a politically motivated witch hunt masquerading as a quest for justice.

Completely ridiculous. Obama's resisted this thing the whole way because he's well aware that it probably HURTS him politically, at the very least by distracting people from the issues he wants to push. The only reason an investigation is happening is that he's not willing to polticize the Justice Department to the extent that Cheney and Bush were, and the AG is not willing to totally ignore clear American law on this point, just mostly ignore it. But even at that, Holder has outlined the narrowest possible investigation he could while still claiming to investigate: He's basically said that the Yoo / Bybee memos that even the Bush Justice Department itself eventually repudiated, and that, reportedly, are severely criticized in a still-secret internal Bush DOJ report as violations of professional ethics, are enough of a shield to immunize anyone who stayed within the memos' generous torture guidelines.

All this has been widely reported. Maybe you missed it because you were too busy caressing your gun.

I am afraid that "grown-ups" who know how things go in the "real world" would vehemently disagree with Curtis as to the morality and utility of torture. I have yet to read of an experienced miltary or law enforcement interrogator who has come out as a defender of using torture as a means of eliciting actionable intelligence.

The defenders of torture are either Bush adminstration operatives who are far from disinterested in how this wil come out, a peculiar mix of right-wing think-tankers and commentators who apparently feel that freedom to torture somehow made it into the Bill of Rights, and bloggers such as Curtis, who seem more like hysterical children than "grown-ups." Repeating the same debunked arguments justifying torture is not how grown-ups act. Take your hands out of your ears guys!

...everything in my comment except that line is legitimate argument...

From Star Trek IV:

[final scene in hospital after treating Chekov for his head injury]
Police guard: "Hey, wasn't he a woman when you came in here?"

Kirk: "One little mistake..."

Charles, it's the old double standard. Curtis can snark all he wants because he believes that strengthens his point(s), but anyone employing the slightest in-kind commentary can be dismissed out of hand. It certainly saves him much inconvenience in actually parsing and thinking about the rest.

Oops. That was Star Trek III. I just can't count in Roman.

You make a mistake in assuming that people who arrive at conclusions different from yours haven't given serious thought to their beliefs and expressed opinions.

I'd be prepared to believe that you've given serious thought to these matters if you had been at all willing to share any of it in this thread. I've cited many, many, many specific details regarding the torture regime and Cheney's position on it in the comments above. When all I get back is slogans, I draw the obvious conclusion.

Incidentally, if you really think your gun is a political statement, then make it one: Write to Obama and tell him how you've got it all prepped and ready in case of further government overreach. Then let us know how that works out for ya.

Oops. That was Star Trek III. I just can't count in Roman.

Franklin, an understandable mistake, since IV was better than III (though perhaps not quite as good as II), don't you think?

Curtis,

You have yet to demonstrate anything resembling serious thought about this. That would mean assimilating our arguments against torture (which are backed by an overwhelming amount of agreement among those who actually carry out interrogations for a living) and then using things called facts to show that we are mistaken. You have yet to do this.

Like many torture apologists, you transfer your thinking on to those who differ from you. Our arguments have not been hysterical or for the most part posturing (as opposed to you hunkering down with your assault rifle after the next attack on the US). With each of your posts you demonstrate a narrowness and simplicity of thought, which you then impute to us.

Franklin,

You are right.

HEY CURTIS! WHEN YOU CHECK UNDER YOUR BED FOR TERRORISTS, MAKE SURE THAT YOU ARE WEARING A FRESH PAIR OF DEPENDS!!

That better?

Franklin Evans -

Thank you, kind sir, for your substantive offer. This was my first post on this topic:

"I won't lose a moment's sleep over the treatment of suspected terrorists. Whatever it takes is OK with me as we are truly at war whether some of us wish to acknowledge that or not. Rod, your logic is seriously flawed as it is possible to believe that acting for the greater good in preventing terrorist attacks does not equal "the road to tyranny"."

My point was (and still is) that the treatment of detainees does not equal "the road to tyranny" as Rod suggested. We can all present whatever arguments we wish, but I'm sure many of us will simply never be in agreement. I'm quite certain CFK, celtic dragon critter, et al will not be moved. Just as I am quite certain that I will not be moved, either. Ironically, as one with Jeffersonian/Libertarian "that government governs best which governs least" leanings, I believe it's fair to say that few of us really trust the Federal government. For some, that is manifested by what is, to me, extreme paranoia about possible search and seizure of American citizens. I just don't see that happening. And so, some of us believe that the wise man is one who takes up arms in the tradition of our forefathers as the best possible defense against a possibly out of control state. Both of these positions are, at their hearts, resistance to the state it seems to me.

CFK seems to me to be your garden variety blowhard wuss who has been blinded by his own brilliance - a legend in his own mind, no doubt.

CFK seems to me to be your garden variety blowhard wuss who has been blinded by his own brilliance - a legend in his own mind, no doubt.

Ah! Jungian projection at its' finest!

Franklin, I'm not sure how you concluded that I accused some of you of hating America.

Some of us seem to have the distinct impression that you fit the latter half of the movie quote. I, for one, suggest from having been in those shoes myself once upon a time -- of clearly not being able to stand Americans -- that your posts (at least) show the same attitude.

Curtis: "My point continues to be that what you consider "torture" and its application to detainees does not rise to the level of "the road to tyranny". "

What do you call it then, when a politician can decide to have anyone, including a US citizen on US soil, picked up off the streets, declared an enemy combatant, denied due process, denied a speedy trial, denied access to legal counsel, placed in a dark cell in solitary confinement, eyes shaded completely even when he is moved from one cell to the next, to the point where the US citizen is just about driven mad? How about warrantless wiretapping of ordinary citizens -- particularly when there are not only ordinary judges to OK a wiretap, but FISA judges to expedite national security matters? We may have different views about what is torture, but the real-life scenarios I described, actions by the Bush Admin., are the very definition of tyrrany.

Curtis,

Whatever it takes in war? Then you part company with General Washington during the Revolution, the time when this country could have been stamped out at birth. In direct contrast to the British, whose mistreatment of its prisoners of war was notorious, Washington gave specific orders that British and Hessian prisoners were to be well-treated, regardless of how the British treated their American captives.

Also, for a Jeffersonian/libertarian, you seem to have an extremely large blind spot toward the Bush administration's actions as described by Liam617.

I am sorry to say that 9/11, which while horrific, in no way threatened the existance of the United States, appears to have unhinged you. You praise ex post facto, actions that are the antithesis of what the United States represents, and that would make a true Jeffersonian/libertarian blanch (or maybe not: Jefferson played fast and loose with the Constitution on a number of occasions).

The United States has faced graver crises than 9/11, and has come through them with its Constitution in pretty good shape. It is a pity that you seem unable to take on board the fact that more damage was done to our system by the response of the Bush administration than by the terrorists who carried out the attacks. This damage continues, not because Obama is turning the US into East Germany with his social programs, but because the Bush administration defenders, apologists for torture, and those who don't appear to know any better, refuse to take on board the near-unanimous opinion of those who are actually fighting Bin Laden, those who have actually interrogated suspected terrorists, and those who will try them, that torture is illegal, immoral, counterproductive, and ultimately ineffective, while posing a grave threat, not only to the United States and its place in the world, but to its own soldiers, and its citizens.

"Whatever it takes," and the moral expediency that follows, it has historically led to actions that leave the country worse off. Ironically, given the overheated rhetoric that is currently flowing from them, it may be armed "Jeffersonian/libertarians" who will feel the weight of the crushing force of the state, if some of your more extreme believers carry out another Oklahoma City-type attack. Rest assured that we will be there for you.

I'll just add, Curtis, my own background for your consideration in reading my posts...

My mother's family fled Zagreb with faked confirmation papers (provided unasked by a Catholic priest), and as Jews stayed in hiding in northern Italy (thanks to the daily, potentially fatal risks taken by the Italian farmers and townsfolk) until the Allies swept through.

My father was an officer in the Yugoslav army that fought against the Communist partisans, was a POW in Italy, was convicted a war criminal in absentia, and following Tito's general amnesty was heard saying to a fellow chetnik "We can never go home." His cremains sit in a box on a shelf waiting for me to take him home.

As immigrants, they taught me a clearer and more intense understanding of patriotism than anyone I know.

Let us keep on keeping on, shall we? ;-)

CFK -

"This, from a guy who claims to object to ad hominem attacks. Priceless. :-D"

I wouldn't say so much that I object to them as much as you have a clear pattern here on this board of denigrating others who have made no prior personal attacks on you. Here's another cliche for you to ridicule - If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

Clearly, you are blinded by your own hubris. You seem to act as if this is some sort of contest of wits - as if cleverness and facility with language is the determinant or right and wrong, or Truth. That's just so wrong.

"Now go away, or I shall taunt you a second time":-)

The idea that nations that use torture are destined to share the fate of the Nazis in Germany or the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia simply isn't supported by any serious reading of history.

bradL, I'm aware of that, and I wasn't arguing -- sarcastically or otherwise -- for anything being "destined." I was responding to the point that a number of our pro-torture friends here have been making, that somehow torture is essential to the survival of the United States (or the West), and that if you're opposed to it then you don't care about the country's defense. The facts that I was alluding to are, at the very least, inconsistent with that view and serve to raise questions about it. Maybe it's just coincidence that several of the regimes most closely associated with torture and inhumane treatment have met sorry ends, while the world's most prosperous, powerful and successful nations are the same liberal democracies that pushed the Geneva Conventions, the Convention Against Torture and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Maybe. But it's certainly not what the torture advocates' dire warnings about the grim necessity of torture would have us predict.

On a related point, it's striking how the torture advocates seem to be making two simultaneous but contradictory arguments: (a) that a willingness to torture, and generally to respect no limits in intelligence-gathering or the fight against terrorists, is vital to the country's defense; and (b) that the things that Bush / Cheney authorized weren't torture and that the U.S. doesn't torture. Add those together, and they're apparently saying that Bush and Cheney failed to do things that are vital to the country's defense. Which actually is a point I agree with, although for entirely different reasons.