This is a practice extensively used by such admirable role models as the 3rd Reich ("Sippenhaftung") or the Soviet Union (not to forget Red China), so why should the chosen people of the US (through their leader the Lord's anointed GWB) abstain?

The fact that there are indeed a number of historical antecedents of the current behavior should give us pause. Of course the lesson an RWA would take away would be that we're dealing with bad people who do stuff like that therefore we should be able to do it too.

The lesson a sane person carries away on the other hand is that our human nature is capable of leading to unspeakable acts so its necessary to be particularly vigilant lest we fall into the same trap.

One of the things I'd like to carry over from the last thread is that the one thing Governments and Corporations have in common is that they provide cover for what would be cearly immoral acts if performed by individuals.

From wijid:

I wonder how many of the "disappeared" are not being acknowledged by the CIA because they flipped sufficiently to merit re-location under an alias

From the article:

On July 19, 2006 his name was included in the “Terrorists No Longer a Threat” List.4 No other information about Ghul’s fate has been released by the U.S. government, and his whereabouts remain unknown.

While many possibilties spring to mind as to the gentleman's fate, for some reason, the witness protection program does not strike me as being high on the list of possibilities.

A witness eradication program seems more likely.

But because he can't get elected as a "Libertarian," he lies that he's a Republican.

But I suspect that the folks who actually live in his district and send him to Congress know EXACTLY what they're getting.

That's the other thing about Libertarians. Their philosophy is sufficiently "compact" and simple (or simplistic if you prefer)that there really isn't a lot of breathing room for misrepresentation.

(Except as I noted before the degree to which the insistence on "State's Rights" and "Freedom of Association" is a cover for allowing and legitimizing racial discrimination.)

So somebody at the CIA wanted this story released, (or was simply indifferent as to whether it got released?), in March, 2003.

Kidnapping children was A-OK but dissing GWB from a stage in London was virtual treason. There are a lot of things from that time that, now we are slightly less insane, we'd just as soon forget.

As bellicose as the current Iranian president may be, in his rhetoric, he is not so much of a fool

That whenever the Iranian President is talking about the peaceful use of nuclear power, he is being deceitful and dishonest but when he's making threatening noises against he's neighbors, he's totally honest and should be taken at his word.

was that certain people color their reality in order to achieve their aims. In shooterworld, Ahmadinejad is totally dishonest if it pushes us toward war or he's totally honest if it pushes us toward war. He's completely rational if it pushes us toward war or he's absolutely insane if it pushes us toward war.

Of course the fact that there might be limits to what we are capable of doing to counter the threat doesn't even enter the picture. That's the double tragedy of Iraq. It's done nothing but expose our vulnerability and Lieberman and the other inhabitants of shooterworld think that if we drop more bombs and kill more people then perhaps people will forget that there's not a damn thing we can do to control events EXCEPT to drop bombs and kill people and so far, that hasn't helped matters very much.

It's unfortunate that Joe Klein present such a tempting target. He has, after all, been shown to be among the most thin skinned and pompous of the various beltway-types who've been engaging in the behavior you're describing. He of copurse is just an exemplar of a much wider and more insideous problem.

It's worth noting that Time magazine seems to be institutionally affected. Within hours of the Libby sentencing they were the first out of the gate with an article decrying the injustice of it all:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1628373,00.html

I'd have to do a little more google-work before I can suggest that there attitude might be tied to their personal involvment in the case.

But then again, journalist's personal involvement with the people they're supposed to be watching is pretty much the whole problem in a nutshell, isn't it?

It's actually deeper than that. Much deeper.

One law for them, another for us, applies to EVERYTHING including foreign affairs, warmaking, interrogation techniques, weapons development let alone such mundane matters as tax evasion, embezzlemant or carbon footprint.

You responded to The Elephant as if he weren't lying. But he is.

Lying to FBI invetigators isn't perjury, it's Obstruction of Justice. Lying to the Grand jury is perjury.

There were multiple charges because there were multiple instances of lying. Which happens to be why it was so easy to obtain a conviction.

The Elephant is a liar. Not unlike the guy he's defending.

"I think I know" means "I don't know" which means the rest of your post was pulled directly out of an orifice that isn't your ear. Go peddle your lies elsewahere.

Nice retort.

Too bad Scientician's post successfully refutes everything said in your previous post. Scooter Libby was found guilty and no amount of smoke-blowing is going to change the facts of the case.

Surely, there are cases of perjury where jail is an appropriate penalty--cases where the perjurer let an actual criminal off the hook. That's not the case here. The case here is...well, there's not much of a case here, is there?

http://time-blog.com/swampland/2007/06/more_on_sentencing.html

Every time he opens his mouth, his foot sinks deeper into it.