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New York, 4:26 PM
Tue Nov 24
54 posts in the last 24 hours
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08/28/09
Just for that, I'm not going to collect any more intelligence for you. So there!
08/28/09
DUH! Thats what the CIA is there for. Why is everyone such a bleeding heart liberal.
And for the record, closing Gitmo is a dumb fucking idea. Just another useless 'change'. And yes, i voted for Obama.
08/28/09
Sad that they've gotten to be so bad at the job.
As for 'Gitmo', I suspect there were people who thought that the government had gone too far the first couple of dozen times in recent history that someone set up a detention camp for prisoners they declared outside the bounds of normal laws. It's just that the last couple were so publicized that we really ought to know better than to go down the road.
08/28/09
I'm not losing sleep either way.
edit: just reread your post - it is SAD they have gotten so bad at their jobs..
08/28/09
08/28/09
08/28/09
08/28/09
Isn't there a "Rachael Zoe" liveblog missing you right now?
08/28/09
08/28/09
08/28/09
08/28/09
As far as domestic spying, come on. No one deserves to be disappeared for weeks or months at a time due to profiling because you have a 'funny sounding' name or a different skin color or anything like that. So where did you get the idea I thought that was alright?
08/28/09
shine on, you glorious libertine diamond! wield boldly thy contrarian blade, and swing wildly!
08/29/09
You are just a rabble-rouser, a villager holding a torch, following popular opinion. You make noises but say nothing.
08/29/09
neener neener neener.
08/29/09
08/30/09
(Quietly raises hand.) Uh, actually the CIA's prime objective is not to torture and kill people. It's mainly an intelligence-gathering organization. Spies and shit. And the previaling notion is that information derived from torture has to be cross-checked and vetted anyway, because people who are being beaten to death in clandestine holdings cells tend to say anything to stop being beaten to death. I know: very bleeding heart of me. I'm such an unpragmatic ignoramus! (Slowly lowers hand.)
08/30/09
08/30/09
Nice, asshole.
To all: Maybe I am wrong. Maybe I am misinformed. I am always willing to get more info and reassess what I know. No reason to be FUCKING ASSHOLES ABOUT IT. Seriously. GO FUCK YOURSELVES.
08/30/09
08/30/09
08/28/09
Pareene: its, not it's.
08/28/09
08/28/09
It doesn't lessen the the moral and ethical burden on the CIA. Not one iota. But what sucks is that the CIA is going to get the brunt of this, even though it goes much, much farther up the food chain. In a perfect world, the CIA would be a peripheral investigation in a larger takedown of Bush and his cabinet, but it looks like the CIA are going to be the absolute scapegoats here. In the end, we are still going to have a system which mandates unlimited power for those in the highest positions of leadership, simply because they can never be the valid targets of investigation or prosecution. But if it was bad for the CIA to do this shit, wasn't it bad for the Bush administration to ratify it with justifications from legal counsel, and then directly order it?
08/28/09
08/30/09
Meanwhile, intelligence services (because it's not just the CIA) and probably private interrogators were actually torturing people . . . to death.
We don't have pictures of that, as Errol Morris pointed out in his documentary. At this point I think Lynnie England and the other should have their military statuses reinstated so they can be honorably discharged because the only thing they're guilty of (besides being dumb hillbillies) is following orders, which is what soldiers do. If even one person from intelligence actually goes to jail for murder, I'd be very surprised.
I'll consider feeling sorry for the CIA (and other intelligence services) when anyone in them actually gets in trouble for killing people during interrogations.
08/28/09
Very well written!
08/24/09
I understand that it is probably difficult to look a superior in the eye and say "no, I refuse to break the law in carrying out my duties", but hopefully investigating and prosecuting those that fail to do so will make it easier for others to stand up for what's right in the future. The penalty for not doing so should be greater than the penalty for doing so.
08/24/09
08/24/09
Justice in America works by targeting a few unprotected, unconnected saps at the lower ranks in a corrupted organization and throwing the book at them. "Punishing those responsible" is a phrase structured sequentially in descending order of importance.
08/24/09
08/24/09
08/24/09
07/14/09
Speculation into the real nature of the program can quickly lead into the realm of conspiracy theories and movie plots, but what we've been told so far doesn't really add up. Bush/Cheney led a government that spied on its own citizens and was gung-ho about torture, morality and constitutionality be damned. If that's the shit they were willing to tell us about, what are the things they kept secret?
07/14/09
07/14/09
07/14/09
Also, this program has been developing for 8 years (or decades, if you believe that it has been ongoing in one way or another since the Cold War) and in at least one significant case still hasn't achieved its goal--Bin Laden is alive (hell, even Castro thrived despite our best efforts.) Apparently, in addition to its illegality, it was shut down due to its ineffectiveness in the face of collateral damage. That doesn't seem to be too 'surgical'.
I have a lot of faith in the legal structure of our government. I would much rather risk the consequences of adhering to our constitution and rules of law than those of clandestine, autonomous actions carried out by powerful people who answer to none but their inadequate consciences. Cheney and those emboldened by him have shirked responsibility for everything they have done wrong (does anyone honestly think that Lynndie England was some sort of torture mastermind?)
I do not think for one moment that Dick Cheney or his cronies will save me from anything. Ever.
07/14/09
If this program had the potential to be so efficient and effective that it could quickly take out enough high-level leaders of formidable terrorist organizations to prevent said organizations recovery then maybe it would make sense, but it's absolutely laughable to believe the CIA would be that effective. They never have been, and life is not the movies. And, even if we were that capable, which we aren't, it wouldn't change the fact that there are real problems in the region that would remain unsolved and would continue to screw shit up.
07/14/09
07/14/09
07/14/09
Christ it's like reading any novel from a Brooklyn writer.
07/14/09