May 24, 2009
To move forward, clean the garbage!
To move forward, sometimes we first have to clean up the garbage. From the politicization of the Justice Department to torturing inmates at Guantanamo, to grand theft campaign donations, financial corruption, and procurement violations, the United States is in such a state that we can't move on unless we clean up the current mess. We have to investigate. We have to prosecute.
If Bill Clinton had done his job and cleaned house when he came into office -- prosecuted Iran Contra, investigated the massive corruption of the Bush/Reagan years. He might still have been targetted by the GOP, but it would have been a very different GOP because at least half their leadership would have been where they belonged; either discredited and back in private life, or in jail where they belonged. And if he'd been targeted by a clean and not corrupt GOP for actually breaking the law, I'd have welcomed a President Gore.
Instead he tried to play nice, and the GOP responded with what? With Contract on America, with Special Prosecutors going after his personal life, and with an attempt to impeach him. He was an idiot to think that corrupt and sneaky people would like him. It's not in their interest to.
Obama faces the same choice. He's not dealing with people of integrity or good intentions. If he were we wouldn't have to listen to Oxycontin Rush, Klepto-Cheney or Dump the sick wife Gingrich, as their spokesmen. We wouldn't be debating the merits of torture, just whether to give Yoo a suspended sentance or hard time. Time to clean house!
If you want to understand how corrupt our mavens are start with this article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/22/AR2009052202396.html
And then read the article he is commenting on. No relation, except that Will seems offended by the notion that buying influence and power aren't free speech but are in fact corruption.
http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/research/cornell-law-review/upload/Teachout-Final.pdf
Chris
Posted by cholte at May 24, 2009 04:32 PM
There are sometimes when debate is useless. When I first started on the internet at alt.religion.buddhism.nichiren I was looking for information. I had learned enough from the Gakkai that I figured that Nichiren Shoshu was the culprit in their split. Over a period of time I learned that both NST and SGI were right about each other, but so were their other opponents. They were all involved in a fight that was more about hierarchy, power and donations than about doctrines and integral concepts. So eventually I moved on.
For the past few years I applied the same method to politics. The result has been a reaffirmation of my progressive spirit, and a total sense of the inutility of debating some Republicans and others. This has been reinforced since leaving BDG.
My God! This guy Mancow let himself be waterboarded by a SER instructor in order to demonstrate that the SER instruction based waterboarding used at GITMO wasn't torture. What happens when he admits it is torture? Torture apologists insist that Mancow didn't know what he was talking about.
These are sick people, and when a person demonstrates that they have no regard for facts, it is time to give up arguing with them. That is what i did with NST and Gakkai apologists, and that is what I'm doing with BDG. The facts are what matter first. Facts can be used in different ways so there is plenty of room for arguing the details, but there is no room for arguing essential principles. Torture is against the very credo of the United States. The constitution is our basis, and there is nothing legitimate about violating its strictures.
If I thought that "Nanny State" were unconstitutional instead of insisting that everyone do things my way, I'd insist that if they want to do 'Nanny State' to first put it in the form of a Charter and a Constitutional Amendment. But I don't think that. I can defend my opinion based on my own literal readings of the Constitution -- it is a legitimate area of debate. Torture is not.
Chris
I think there ia a world of difference in being waterboarded when you know you are safe and no one means you real harm and when you think that your abductors would kill you.
But hell, I'm the kind of guy who thinks there is something wrong with having prisoners naked in a cold room, or purposely depriving them of sleep by blasting them with music.
Every one who is not psychotic without exception knows these things are wrong. The way I see it is a lot of people don't care as they can't imagine it ever happening to themselves or their family and that is as far as their humanity extends. Why not goose step gayly and go along with goonsquads when there is no danger of getting your nose scraped?
You are referring to two forms of torture. Torture heavy is waterboarding. Even under controlled circumstances (such as those used on Mancow) almost everyone who has undergone it agrees that waterboarding is torture. Those supporting this form of torture are showing a reckless, violent and depraved side of their personality. There is no debate.
The other thing you are referring to is "torture lite."
Torture heavy is taken from instruction books that date back to the Inquisition through a chain of custody that goes through both the Nazis, the Japanese Fascists, and the Soviet Union. It also passes through the French Foreign legion, British, and methods used by our own Southerners to keep black folks (and earlier, slaves) in line. It has never been legal at the Federal level and still isn't.
Torture heavy is a different animal. It too traces back to the inquisition. The goal of both is to break the prisoner. Torture heavy is employed to win confessions, get people to finger other innocent folks, get folks to support claims that say Saddam Hussein is hiding weapons of mass instruction, or to satisfy the cruelty and depravity of torturers and their sick audiences. It is generally agreed to be useless as a source of intelligence and simply reveals the brute lack of intelligence of the torturers. It is useful as an instrument of state terrorism. As when a government practices torture it generally advertizes it in order to scare the bejeesies out of people.
"Torture lite", and indirect punishments can accomplish the same thing, but with the cover of the pretense of being legal. We can "render" prisoners to other Governments, or hood and isolate them with a bit more of an easy conscience and a little less rationalizing.
It is still torture, but the sickos in our country can point fingers at ACLU or critics by calling them sympathetic or "emotional" if they point that little fact out. It supposedly "works" -- to destroy people.
I guess some people can't help being sick. Somehow reading the letter of the law, observing how something affects people, hearing case studies of tough people who spend years after incarceration in tears, or are totally broken as a result of these "methods" isn't enough for them. Such people have zero empathy and zero "mettawaves" and seem proud of it. The only word is "sicko."
One person wrote to one of these sickos, whom I've given up arguing with myself:
"I'm witnessing a case study of how partisanship
and group identification are stronger than even the most extreme of ethical standards. Rather than continue to be judgemental on how that appears to me, I will use this observation constructively to be on guard to the same phenomenon in myself."
I think that is a good idea -- there is no further point in arguing with the folks who thought Mancow was a genius and now think he was an idiot for changing his mind.
Amazing how we can rationalize anything when people we identify are doing it. I can't. I'm not going to apologize to them for them being sick. That is called enabling.
When there is no argument there is no point in arguing points that don't exist. All I can do is to restate the definitions, point to where it is codified in US, International (Geneva Convention), and Military law. The definitions are clear. If there is a line between torture and legal incarceration it is before hooding, denuding, degrading behavior, and extended isolation, not before waterboarding. If our general jails are sick too, that is no excuse for us violating the Geneva Conventions and our own traditional standards.
[Not that we've ever been consistent in living up to them all the time. I've heard some stories about a relative of mine who fought in Vietnam Cambodia, and Laos, that would curl your toes. Hope they aren't true, but suspect I'm wrong. "Sheep Dipping" has often meant doing despicable things under cover of secrecy.]
Chris
I thought "sheep dipping" was sheep diddling. Now I see it's far worse.
Spooks who do secret things are okay with me, Spooks who break USA laws and do things outside the scope of protecting the USA from really bad guys are not alright with me. What scares me is that some of those folks think "liberal" people to be "really bad guys" and that should make all of us nervous.
In Argentina the motto was "well you must have done something wrong" -- and they would torture people until they had the entire list of parking infractions plus a list of fantasy infractions and denunciations of neighbors, friends and family members. Torture is the gift that keeps giving.
I suspect many CIA folks feel the same way. All this talk about demoralizing the CIA if laws are enforced might be demoralizing to crooks and law-breakers, but folks who are honorable would probably welcome some fresh air and sunshine. The CIA was demoralized by the Plame affair. A little house cleaning would probably cheer it up.
Chris
"My God! This guy Mancow let himself be waterboarded by a SER instructor in order to demonstrate that the SER instruction based waterboarding used at GITMO wasn't torture. What happens when he admits it is torture? Torture apologists insist that Mancow didn't know what he was talking about."
Robin writes:
"Good grief! There is a video on youtube showing how Mancow was waterboarded. It was not quite 'Japanese Water Cure."
No it was administered by a Survival Evasion and Resistance instruction in a safe environment and with the victim able to stop the procedure at any moment -- which the procedure described by Bibey's memo doesn't allow, and since it was former SER instructors who administered the procedures at GITMO and other places, this was close enough and much easier on the "customer."
Robin:
"However, it was quite clearly not the method used at Gitmo"
No the procedure at GITMO was much worse as the victim had no way of signaling and stopping it.
"In this procedure, the individual is bound securely to an inclined bench, which is approximately four feet by seven feet. The individual's feet are generally elevated. A cloth is placed over the forehead and eyes. Water is then applied to the cloth in a controlled manner. As this is done, the cloth is lowered until it
covers both the nose and mouth. Once the cloth is saturated and completely covers the mouth and nose, air flow is slightly restricted for 20 to 40 seconds ..."
Robin:
"Look at Mancow's video. See for yourself. Was water applied to the cloth in a controlled manner {6 small pours}? Nope. Nearly a gallon was dumped in a totally uncontrolled manner right in his mouth and nose. None on the cloth. Sorry, it was not the same procedure."
I watched the video, both on TV and on the internet Robin. Mancow had it easier than the average person at GITMO. You are rationalizing!
"Is spanking child abuse? My buddy's used a 2 by four and hit the kid hard enough to cause bruises."
By current standards it is Robin. And using a bull whip or two by four is definitely child abuse.
"Sometimes, he used a bull whip and left scars. I think that was child abuse. My Dad used his fraternity paddle, and lightly tapped us. Looking at the paddle itself, and the look on my Dad's face, hurt more. I do not think that was child abuse. The point is, not all apanking is the same."
I was paddled as a child. When a school administrator does it it is torture, and mostly illegal nowadays. Which is what Torture is. You keep forgetting that. Maybe you need to get some child abuse counseling.
"This also goes for waterboarding. What was done to Mancow obviously would have violated the rules at Gitmo. If there were violations, I am certain the proper officials know."
What was done to Mancow was done in a controlled setting where he had a choice of ending it at any time, which he did.
In fact, a violation was apparently uncovered at gitmo:
"The waterboard technique [in one instance] ...was different from the technique ... used in the SERE training. The difference was the manner in which the detainee’s breathing was obstructed. At the SERE school ..., the subject’s airflow is disrupted by the firm application of a damp cloth over the air passages; [after] the interrogator applies a *small* amount of water to the cloth in a controlled manner. By contrast, the Agency Interrogator … [in one instance] applied large volumes of water to a cloth that covered the detainee’s mouth and nose."
The films show this as standard practice. And waterboarding was not the only savage torture practiced.
"That was in an IG report, and corrective action was taken. That demonstrates that the method used makes a difference."
It also demonstrates that the fundamental flaw with allowing any violation of law is that it leads to excesses. Once the right to not be "cruelly and unusually punished" extralegally is gone, it is gone. And once people start violating the law who are charged with upholding the law the entire legal system is subverted.
"There was also an effort to say the method of Japanese Water Cure was the same:"
That is BS Robin and a sideshow. The point is that at least one Japanese Torturer was punished for using a form of waterboarding nearly identical to the SER practice. And whether the methods are the same or not the effect is the "sensation of drowning" which is the same no matter the method -- except the Japanese method was much more reckless and designed to kill at least some it was practiced on.
"Water cure is a form of water torture in which the victim is forced to drink large quantities of water in a short time, resulting in gastric distension, water intoxication, and possibly death. Often the victim has the mouth forced or wedged open, the nose closed with pincers and a funnel or strip of cloth forced down the throat. The victim has to drink all the water (or other liquids such as saltwater, bile or urine) poured into the funnel to avoid drowning. The stomach fills until near bursting, and is sometimes beaten [or kicked and jumped on] until the victim vomits and the torture begins again."
So??? Sideshow Robin. You are spinning like a Tazmanian devil again rather than facing facts.
"As for calling for investigations and prosecutions, you might as well relieve yourself into the wind. That probably goes for my effort to inject accurate thinking into the debates. Now, I shall duck, as my words are twisted, my ethics questioned, and I am called a liar. "
Well if you would stop arguing nonsense, defending the indefensible and trying to call illegal torture something other than what it is, people might not think you were a liar. In short if you'd stop lying nobody would call you a liar.
Now I wasn't arguing with you here. Go back to your own propaganda network and leave me alone.
Chris
gassho with metta & khanti
a robin who endures much abuse
My buddy's [Dad] used a 2 by 4 ..
Robin:
"Water cure is a form of water torture in which the victim is forced to drink large quantities of water in a short time, resulting in gastric distension, water intoxication, and possibly death. Often the victim has the mouth forced or wedged open, the nose closed with pincers and a funnel or strip of cloth forced down the throat. The victim has to drink all the water (or other liquids such as saltwater, bile or urine) poured into the funnel to avoid drowning. The stomach fills until near bursting, and is sometimes beaten [or kicked and jumped on] until the victim vomits and the torture begins again."
Robin:
"Anyone who thinks that is the same is just weird. However, no, pointing to worse forms of torture does not in any way excuse milder forms. That is not the point. Pointing to what turns out to be infinitely worse forms of waterboarding, to prove that milder forms are torture, was just plain deceptive and intellectually dishonest."
Chris:
If you want to take offense at others calling you a liar don't lie Robin. Your argument is a total non sequitur.
Your argument initially was that waterboarding wasn't torture because the Japanese were practicing this water cure, but the fact is that at least one Japanese interrogator was tried for waterboarding that was nearly identical to the torture methods described by SER.
Everybody universally condemns waterboarding as torture. Everybody except those authoritarians and violent people who seem to see nothing wrong with torturing people or using a two by four on a child.
Case closed.
I've been trying to leave Robin's name out of this discussion, but he comes here and demonstrates that he has this obsession with waterboarding. Maybe like Mancow he should subject himself to it so he can determine for himself. Myself I'm accepting the universal and legal definitions for what they are. This is sick.