What method has been shown to reveal reliable evidence? Has someone presented a more effective alternative, and if so, why aren't we using it? The government tries to gather information via wire tapping and people are up in arms about that as well. I want to get behind an alternative method that has been *proven* to work. So please....anyone... give me one example.
Actually, this is the most disgraceful chapter in American history. These memos reveal a depraved indifference to what America is and what we stand for.
As for wire tapping, we've had FISA, which is a perfectly workable way to legally wiretap threats to National Security, in place since the 1970s. It's not a question of whether we wiretap. It' a question of whether we do it according to the constitution.
Also...Mukasey has proven himself to be a partisan hack once again. He was a joke as Attorney General, and he's being embarrassed by someone who does the job half right.
Finally, it's only half the job. By choosing not to prosecute, the Obama administration comes dangerously close to endorsing the Bush administration's crimes. I'll remember it at election time.
@pooks: I would really like to know that you were asking that in earnest and not in that rightwing way of saying "prove something to me that I believe in my heart can't be proved." Because the link I provided you to the book How to Break a Terrorist not only answers your question and goes one better to explain--from the point of view of an interrogator in Iraq--how many US military deaths the torture that was done actually caused. It would be nice if people took seriously the point of view of people who actually have experience with things like interrogating terrorists. Thanks.
Is there a way to screen out the the half-baked "news analysis" stories from my default Gawker page layout? For the same reasons I don't read the WSJ or the Economist for their witty Gossip Girl updates and fameball takedowns, I don't read Gawker for its attempts to analyze the economic crisis and foreign policy. Let's all stick to the topics we're good at, shall we?
Every time Jack Bower tortures someone he seems to get really reliable intelligence right in the nick of the time. In fact, almost invariable any intel he gets that doesn't come from torture is flawed.
@pepelicious: Seriously, these guys should be glad they're not rotting in jail right now for war crimes and subversion of the US Constitution and the Geneva convention. What a bunch of spoiled brats that they think they can actually complain about releasing these memos.
How about this deal, jerkoffs: you keep talking and eventually we get mad enough to stop being nice. Either that, or shut your goddamn traps and maybe this eventually becomes part of history. An embarrassing, awful part of history, but at least not one that we keep wondering if anybody should be sitting in a cell over.
Oh yeah, and the best part of those memos comes after they describe in detail all the ways we tortu--I mean, interrogate people, when Bybee and the other hacks openly write "Yes, we know that the US condemns these practices as torture when other countries do it, but those rules don't apply to us, because... it's us! And we say so."
@zizekian: Actually, I take that back. Go fuck yourself, pedant. Websters defines Arabic as" adj. Of or relating to Arabia, the Arabs, their language, or their culture." Which is why my best friend correctly identifies himself as of Arabic decent.
@BadUncle: Apologies for misunderstanding you. The point I tried and failed to make was that the use of dogs against the detainees was based on the fact that they're Muslims, not that they're Arabs, which means that they also used dogs against Pakistani, Afghani, and other non-Arab prisoners.
Oh, come on now. As we know from Torquemada, the innocent will find strength through God to endure pain, if they are telling the truth. And they will weigh less than a duck be made of wood.
At the risk of incurring he ire of all those who feel sympathy for this guy (an emotion I totally understand), let's all keep in mind that this guy's job has been blocking the effective functioning of the constitution, which he swore to defend and uphold. Karma: a bitch.
@Mediahohoho: And it's not really Karma that's a bitch, it's cognitive dissonance. I've never understood how Mukasey throw an entire career's good reputation down the toilet for the sake of defending George Bush, Karl Rove and Alberto Gonazlez's law breaking in the service of the neo-conservative wing of the Republican party. The only thing I can conclude is that they must have had some pretty serious shit on him.
@Mediahohoho: I never thought about the blackmail angle--that's a very good possibility. I can totally see Rove operating that way. I wonder if severed horse heads were involved? Whatever they did, he couldn't refuse...
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[www.amazon.com]
Actually, this is the most disgraceful chapter in American history. These memos reveal a depraved indifference to what America is and what we stand for.
As for wire tapping, we've had FISA, which is a perfectly workable way to legally wiretap threats to National Security, in place since the 1970s. It's not a question of whether we wiretap. It' a question of whether we do it according to the constitution.
Also...Mukasey has proven himself to be a partisan hack once again. He was a joke as Attorney General, and he's being embarrassed by someone who does the job half right.
Finally, it's only half the job. By choosing not to prosecute, the Obama administration comes dangerously close to endorsing the Bush administration's crimes. I'll remember it at election time.
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How about this deal, jerkoffs: you keep talking and eventually we get mad enough to stop being nice. Either that, or shut your goddamn traps and maybe this eventually becomes part of history. An embarrassing, awful part of history, but at least not one that we keep wondering if anybody should be sitting in a cell over.
These people just still aren't getting it.
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American exceptionalism FAIL you douchebags.
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