Letters to the Editor
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How can these people make such pronouncements in such ignorance?
And why do we let them?
I am absolutely of the opinion that ANYONE who is or seeks to be in a position that could sanction any of these torture techniques should be required to experience them personally.
Absolutely. No exceptions.
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The prospect of a Rudy White House
fills me with a dread I don't think I can quite describe. Read the section in Faludi's "The Terror Dream" where Rudy explains we should believe the Firemen in the Tower could hear their radios; because it's much more positive and makes for a more uplifting story.
He lacks even the charm of a cuddly monster; he's the banality of banality.
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Rudy Mussolini
The prospect of having this no-neck fascist goon running what's left of our country for another 4 years is too upsetting to long contemplate.
I agree with you Joe: let Guiliani agree to be waterboarded in the same manner as our detainees in Gitmo. Let's put in on YouTube. In fact, let's have a bet: if he doesn't blubber and scream for mercy, we let him be President. I have zero doubt that he will not pass this test. After all, it is torture.
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Let's Not
...even consider trading one lunatic for another. The current crop need to be subjected to "the water cure" themselves. I'm sure it would cause a series of interesting "breakthroughs" and maybe even get some of them to tell the "truth."
Giuliani is a freak already. Nothing he says or does surprises me. The only upside to him is that he has something to offend everyone, which is the whole point anyway, now isn't it?
Can we just send this guy back to his home planet?
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The More Things Change
I was raised working Catholic in Detroit and lived in "Rudy's town" more years than I wish to divulge.
He's running as a Republican in 2007.
That's it. End of the story. He don't know from waterboarding. He don't know nothin' except he can't be a softie. The boys on the playground would laugh and one of the bullies would try to get on top.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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"they're all the same"...NOT.
I wish each and every person here at Salon or in the country as a whole who still believes it doesn't really matter who wins the White House next year would just sit down, reread this article, and think quietly for five minutes. Who can possibly believe this potential tyrant is "no different" from Hillary or John or Barack or Joe or take-your-pick Democrat? Who can still claim it's a good idea to sit out the election if INSERT LEAST FAVORITE DEMOCRAT HERE is nominated? We have to get over our petty infighting, and soon, or this kind of guy is going to control our country for years to come.
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Unfortunately
Personal experience doesn't ever seem to change the outward opinion of conservative hypocrites. Being gay doesn't stop them from denouncing gays and fighting to curtail gay rights. Having had an abortion doesn't stop them from working against a woman's right to choose (because when they were born again, that "sin" was erased... so it never even happened!). Being a serial adulterer doesn't stop them from vilifying anyone who has an affair. And being a Christian doesn't stop them from doing exactly the opposite of What Jesus Would Do.
So I wouldn't hold out much hope for Rudy finding "religion" where torture is concerned, even if he were tortured himself. He'd call it foreplay if he thought it would get him votes. After all, we're talking about a Yankee fan who's rooting for the Red Sox to win the World Series.
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Rudy is fascist scum
God help us should this shallow, evil man ever become president.
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Of course there is a difference
"does he mean to suggest that the Japanese war criminals were wrong, but the CIA is right?"
The Japanese were waterboarding American soldiers who were fighting for freedom; the CIA is waterboarding Islamo-fascists who are out to destroy the American way of life. As Bush said, they hate our freedoms. No doubt one of the freedoms those terrorists hate is the freedom that Bush abrogates to himself is to use the double standard when it comes to torture. As long as the (right) god is on your side anything short of death or major organ failure is just fine, therefore it can't be torture.
The really sad thing is that Rudy's view of waterboarding is held to be a rightful view by so many people.
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Duke of URL
How can these people make such pronouncements in such ignorance?
It's not ignorance. It's evasion. Whenever right-wingers get stuck with a question they don't want to answer (when campaigning or when facing a criminal investigation) they play the Stupid Defense. They pretend they're idiots, which plays well with real idiots who identify closely with stupidity and think they're voting for one of their own.
Reagan was a master of the Stupid Defense during the Iran-Contra investigations. To be fair though, it's possible that senile dementia was already well along by that time. Still, Reagan established that utter witlessness is an effective political tactic.
They all do it. Rumsfeld was always completely out of the loop when asked about Pentagon scandal by congressional investigators, and Gonzales was a complete kneebiter when asked about torture and illegal spying. And they mostly got away with it.
Cheney: "Suckers!"
Dubya: "I'm a low-grade moron. Ask anybody."
"I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it."
- John Stuart Mill
"Bush's appeal is, after all, to the stupid. They, too, are inflexible - they also know that maintaining one's stupidity can become a kind of strength, provided you never change your mind."
- Norman Mailer, New York Review of Books
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Thank you Joe.
Thank you for focusing on the torture issue. (and f*** me with a fork that 'torture' could be an 'issue.')
But is Rudy really 'the' target? Is he worse than the other republicans? Is he worse than all of the democrats? (I hope so, I assume so)