New York, 6:10 AM
Sun Nov 29
12 posts in the last 24 hours
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| posts about #disagreements more → |
Michael Isikoff Reveals Details of Secret White House Torture Meeting |
Best Paragraph? More Like Third Quartile! |
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Gawker 
05/21/09
A "truth commission" would most likely take a lot of high powered Dems down as well and be a general embarrasment to his own party.
As you see with the ongoing Pelosi scandal the shrill voices of the Democratic Party knew many things and did nothing.
I am not against some investigation. I am just telling you that
A) The people you think are guilty aren't the only ones
B) It isn't going to happen anyway.
05/21/09
Signed, a powerless Dem
05/21/09
Even when they do happen, they drag out for decades and rarely result in what you'd call "justice" (Pol Pot died before he could be brought to trail, ditto Slobodon Milosivic, and I think we'd all agree there was little "justice" in the trial of Saddam Hussein). It's kinda complicated, dudes.
05/21/09
Yes, that's always an excellent reason not to pursue investigations or even a semblance of justice like toothless truth commissions. It's complicated, so why bother? If the process doesn't yield instant gratification and immediate "closure" in that venerable American way, let's forget about it.
Also, mass murderers in other countries often aren't brought to full justice. If they can get away with it, why can't we?
By the way, thousands and thousands of citizens did die and disappear as a result of the Bush Administration's war crimes. But I guess because they're Iraqis, they don't count in your calculus.
(P.S. I love Jarvis Cocker, and I'm dead certain he couldn't disagree with your dubious "let's move on" argument more.)
05/21/09
05/21/09
05/22/09
05/21/09
05/21/09
Not talking about Obama but this dumb ass group of concerned leaders.
For way too long Bush abused the power of the president for his own use. Obama is getting away from that, putting the burden of doing their jobs on the people who should be doing it (in this case it should be congress who is going after the previous administration, NOT the presedent) and people are whining like crazy about Obama actually doing his god damn job and not treding on the legislative or judicial branches like Bush did.
OUR PRESIDENT IS NOT A FUCKING KING YOU IDIOTS, listen to what he is saying and do your damn jobs.
05/21/09
Yeah, what a bunch of dumbasses trying to get the President to enforce the United States Constitution he is sworn to uphold.
Lying to start an illegal war, suspension of habeus corpus, admitted torture to fabricate evidence to sell previously mentioned illegal war... what the hell crawled up their crazy whiny asses and died?
05/22/09
05/21/09
I mean, if security is all that matters then let's have a secure, crime-free society. I lived in one once. Here's how it works. If a crime gets committed, you just round up 100 of the likeliest suspects, beat the shit out of them until one or more confess, then throw everyone who confesses in jail for life. Just call them enemy combatants in the war on crime.
By the way, this was a country that had been battling Islamic terrorism since 1982. They were able to go decades at a time without a serious terrorist incident by use of something called the "black slave," which was a super-heated knife positioned beneath a chair with a hole cute in the seat. A lot of people confessed to their terrorist activity just looking at that thing.
Also, their journalist tended to write only friendly stories about the regime and there was no political opposition to speak of so, you know, no bitter partisan debates.
05/21/09
So let's debate it. If torture is the way we want to go then fine. I have absolutely no problem renouncing my citizenship in a country that acts on that belief.
But President Obama needs to realize that a good percentage of his 53% majority voted that way not just because they were tired of Republicans, but also because they wanted a legal repudiation of "Enhanced Interrogation." Presumably, the best way to repudiate the findings of Yoo and his gang of hacks is to subject them to legal proceedings.
Finally, as many have suggested, the reason there is so much pressure on Obama to not act on torture allegations is that a lot of Democrats in the House and the Senate colluded in these decisions. It's much harder for Obama to buck his own party, especially when many of the guiltiest are part of his own cabinet.
05/21/09
"I have absolutely no problem renouncing my citizenship in a country that acts on that belief."
What, are you unaware of the torture committed in your name already? Drama queen.
05/21/09
But way to go to name calling.
05/21/09
05/21/09
05/21/09
How enlightened.
05/21/09
You probably know that the use of torture was a lot more widespread than that, and that at least some of those tortured were suspected terrorists, not actual terrorists, but honesty doesn't seem to be your strong suit.
05/21/09
All that you know...you brilliant fucking mind reader, you, and yet you believe that the torture regime is limited, really oddly, to three terrorists at Gitmo and a bunch of hillbillies at one prison (out of tens of prisons) in Iraq. And absolutely did not extend, no sir, to any part of the prisons in Afghanistan to which we apparently haven't been sending people we pluck off the street in the west and by all means does not include hundreds if not thousands of luckless bastards in either of those theaters of war. Why you don't know these things (when you know so much about people you don't know) is beyond me. But here's one thing I know...
You've got a lot of fucking nerve lecturing other people.
05/22/09
05/22/09
05/22/09
05/21/09
05/21/09
What is the value of a "Truth Committee?" You can't compel people to testify against their own interest without charging them. If you offer the officials immunity in exchange for their testimony, then you stand the chance of letting criminals escape prosecution as the truth is revealed. If you don't, then the Fifth Amendment applies and savvy lawyers are probably not going to allow the testimony. In other words, no truth actually comes out.
Going after one key prosecution when you have multiple persons guilty of a crime is selective justice. You are going to let the most culpable people go to secure on indictment? Isn't that the definition of "scapegoat?:"
Legally proving that a crime was committed is also difficult. No one has denied that there was water-boarded of prisoners or that attorneys interpreted the definition of torture so that water-boarding did not qualify. But then you have to show that the attorneys knowingly manipulated the law. Until you can establish that a crime may have occurred (legally - not gut feeling) pulling people in for questioning is pointless.
05/21/09
That said, subpoena power is a lovely thing.
05/21/09
05/21/09
Apparently, most of them wanted unity as long as it included Cheney's head on a stick.
We could have had President HRC and the entire right-wing conspiracy on a pike, but the people wanted Obama. Well, he comes with a pledge not to hound the losers, guys. If you didn't want that, you could have voted for Hillary...
05/21/09
05/21/09
05/21/09
The Obama administration will someday find itself sitting on the wrong end of the political stick. Assuming that, you can guarantee that if the administration made any substantive move towards, say, prosecuting Dick Cheney and his cohorts, the right, being no stranger to outrageous hypocrisy, would see no problem in ginning up some sort of charge to level against Obama when they do, eventually retake the Oval Office.
Political winds change, and you want to watch where you were standing before they shifted, so you don't get caught in the wrong spot when they do.
Obama has repeatedly pressed the Legislative Branch to do the heavy lifting on myriad issues of this sort, because: a) it's their responsibility b) they're the only ones who can do this without the attendant downstream blowback.
If the left wants to blame someone, blame the Senate and their 43-6 vote against funding the shut-down of Gitmo. That was some serious political cowardice on their parts, and they should be held accountable for that failure.
Finally, the Bush administration left Obama in a completely untenable position on this issue and many others. They made so many, and such egregious, power grabs and other constitutional misdeeds, that undoing them requires a kind of political accounting that would both hamstring the Obama administration in terms of fixing the mess, and potentially leave Obama personally liable down the road.
05/21/09
So while politically the expedient thing might be to just ignore it or to pawn off on the legislature what is the Department of Justice's duty to investigate, it's not the moral thing. I thought lefties voted Obama in on a belief in the fierce moral urgency of Change. Not just because he was politically shrewd.
And don't go blaming the Senate and the Bush Administration for Obama's failure to act. It's apparent the Senate was merely protecting what its own constituents--the people--want. That is, after all, their job. And if the Obama administration was left in such an untenable situation by the Bush administration, why do they keep reasserting their rights to those same power grabs--and asserting new ones--each and every day?
05/21/09
Never underestimate the petty vindictiveness of the GOP, and their willingness to compromise the safety and security of this country to settle a political score.
So when I talk about blowback resulting from the prosecution of a former elected member of the Executive Branch (Cheney), that's what I mean.
05/22/09
Seriously, here's Obama giving the GOP a pass for actually torturing people, and the GOP is responding by calling for Pelosi's head because she didn't call them on their own shit.
Obama is out of his fucking tree if he thinks these people are going to cut him one ounce of slack, ever. I mean, a lot of these people are still pissed about Sherman.