Yes, She Went There

Rely on our SPARKLE to advocate torture.

I wanted to be funny, but it is quite sad that there is a fringe in our country that thinks it is ok to do things that we — meaning our country — have found so wrong that we executed people for it.

“Yeah, we waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,”

so says GWB

This is one area that most of Obama’s critics don’t get.  It’s not that the U.S. doesn’t or has never tortured anyone — it’s that torture is bad all the way around.  It doesn’t produce actionable intel.  It makes the survivors revengeful.  It is beneath this country at this point.

I bet holidays at the Bush house are torture for the old man.  Can you just see W slapping the old man on the back and saying, “I got two terms!  I got Saddam’s gun!”  Poor Poppy and Bar.

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It Takes Time, I Guess

Ashcroft can be held liable for violating the civil rights of those picked up in the sweeps after 9/11 of people as “witnesses” who then were considered terrorists without a shred of evidence.

Even though it’s taken a long time, as with almost all legal cases, this is a very good step forward.

While Flawed, This Gets at What I See to be Right

Our country’s sad decent into oblivion.

Anyone who condones any of this is just wrong.

My only question is why ABC just found this out now.  Where were they in 2006? or 2003, or 2001 for that matter.

A Happy, Hopeful, Ending and Beginning

Four of the Uighurs held at Gitmo for years arrived in Bermuda this past Thursday.  Articles and photos here and here.

I’m still very disappointed in Jim Webb over this.  There is a Uighurs community in Virginia very willing to take the men in.  Perhpas its all for the best.  They probably wouldn’t have had the same warm welcome there that they received in Bermuda.

Here We Go Again

The “gotcha” brigade was out again in force.  This time it was Robert Gibbs.  They wanted to say that he admitted that the decision to close Gitmo was HASTY, which seems silly on its face, but hey, they ran with it .

Reality is here.  Establishing Gitmo was hasty.  Closing it will be very messy . . . because opening it was hasty (or stupid, or really bad ideas from the same camp I linked to above.

John Walker Lindh

I wasn’t a part, nor do I remember the initial trouble surrounding John Walker Lindh.  In late 2001, we had our own problems to deal with at work, and I hadn’t yet discovered blogs.

A few years ago — I don’t remember when — I followed a link and looked up many of the reports about him.  Today I came across this article at GQ.  It’s written by an Iraq vet, so maybe it will get ignored.

The article pointed out how quickly the conversion went from the Taliban as creatures of our own creation to their being enemies.  I think that there were a lot of people who had gotten distracted by Bosnia who then didn’t get what had happened in Afghanistan.

What struck me was that in the same year that John was prosecuted, the Bush administration had given millions to the Taliban.  At least all of the photographs of his capture have been removed, as far as I can tell.

Having read the entire article, having endured the nonstop slurs, I empathize with the family.

To think that our defenders think it’s ok to judge first and get the details later dovetails quite nicely with this.

Party of life.  Party of death.

I’m quite happy with the leader of my party.

Listening to Hannity

He’s in full rant about Speaker of the House Pelosi with his new mantra about what she knew about torture and when she knew it.  He’s advertising that he’ll have a timeline on his show tonight.  I wonder if it will look anything like this.

Earlier he read from Karl Rove’s WSJ op-ed today.

If Mrs. Pelosi considers the enhanced interrogation techniques to be torture, didn’t she have a responsibility to complain at the time, introduce legislation to end the practices, or attempt to deny funding for the CIA’s use of them? If she knew what was going on and did nothing, does that make her an accessory to a crime of torture, as many Democrats are calling enhanced interrogation?

For the past hour, Hannity has been playing fast and loose with time.  He keeps implying that Pelosi had a lot more power than she did at the time this all happened.  He’s calling for a special prosecutor and for Pelosi to testify under oath (something Hannity never demanded of Bush or Cheney, surprise surprise.)  And gees, now he’s talking to Dick Morris.

Every Republican/Conservative has wanted Pelosi out since she took office.  they are getting ahead of themselves here, I think.

From the comments at Ballon Juice, there might be a an underlying, alternative outcome of this whole thing.  I read about it right when Obama released the memos:  that the torture was not done to protect the country, but rather to justify the invasion of Iraq.

Yes, let’s have a true commission, or a special counsel as Hannity wants.

Now Dick Morris is lying about how the FBI found out about Jose Padilla.  Now who are you going to believe, Dick Morris, or the guy who got the information?

Update:  Hannity has repeatedly called Eric Holder a coward.  That’s just too cute by half.  Here’s how Hannity does cya.

Have you ever noticed that it’s always a special edition of the Sean Hannity Show?

Update Update:  Hannity is going to far.  He thinks Pelosi is shaking because she is lying.  He says  Pelosi is politicizing it.  Irony?  Dead.

My God.  Father Coughlin was  . . .   My God.  This is more than shameful.

Update Update Update:  She’s third in line.  Hannity et al WANT her to be shaking.

In the end, this will work out.

Another Compare and Contrast — This time regarding Condi Rice’s encounter at Stanford

A video of Condi Rice (embedded in several links) answering a Stanford student’s question on torture was making the rounds last week.  Most of the commentary characterizes Rice’s responses and demeanor as increasingly hostile and at one point she “pulls a Nixon.”

The next day, Scott Horton (someone I admire) took apart each of Rice’s points.  Horton ends his post with this:

So I score this: Stanford student 6, Rice 0. Rice needs to do some homework before her next appearance on campus. But first perhaps she’d better hire a good lawyer.

Then this morning, a whole different group of posts shows up.  Here are a few quotes:

If everyou needed further proof of the “person of color” America really needs in charge right now, I urge you to watch this fabulous YouTube footage of the magnificent Condoleezza Rice being ambushed by left-liberal students at Stanford University with a series of “difficult” questions about torture, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and US foreign policy under George W Bush. (Hat tip: Andrew Hamilton.)

It’s too bad we no longer have adults leading this country.

Watch ouralways classy, former SOS take on Stanford University progressive liberal know-it-all students, and put their sound byte educated selves in their place during an impromptu “interrogation” about torture, Gitmo, etal. This woman doesn’t parse words, straddle fences, and she sure doesn’t back down…. and still remains the lady thru and thru.

My personal favorite? The part about why the Club Gitmo tribunals were delayed.

Condi Rice disembowels a sniveling liberal puppy from Stanford University

I sure miss having grownups in positions of authority.

The phony “torture” rhetoric moonbats have been pushing is going to blow up in their self-righteous faces when their policies inevitably lead to an attack that will make 9/11 look like a fender-bender. They will be complicit in the bloodshed, and everyone will know it.

The factis we saw what they would have done, and it would have ulimately led to more attacks on US soil.

For me at least, it the difference between reason (Scott Horton) and cheer leading (the other links).

Surprised? I’m not.

Psychologists apparently got paid a good deal of money in the torture racket of the Buah administration.  Even just the little that I have read about torture, mental health professionals have always been involved, to their discredit.  I particulalry remember what happened in South Africa, but it’s no different than what we have here. (Bonus shooting the messenger from a torture apologist who worked for McCain.) Oh and, don’t miss the crazy in the comments at the links.

On a related point, regular church goers also have less of a problem with torture than people like me.

It’s not really irony anymore.  I shake my head in shame.