Letters to the Editor
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Dung keeps getting deeper
Personally, I like to mock the liberal ideologues who now think that John Yoo orchestrated the activities for which Spc. Graner and Pfc. England were court-martialed. Even Graner and England never claimed to be "interrogating" anybody. They certainly never read any memos or instructions from John Yoo, no matter how active Glenn Greenwald's imagination might be.
The behavior of the underlings had absolutely zero connection to a pervasive attitude from the top down that there was no concept of "human rights" for these prisoners who were deliberately classified outside of the language of the Geneva Conventions. Just some rogue operators who weren't privy to the high-level discussions outlining the acceptable parameters for abuse. No wonder they crossed the line.
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John Yoo, Enabler
i watched my country fall apart over the past seven years. our leaders have failed us, repeatedly. we as voters have failed, repeatedly.
America has never been perfect but the American people seem to have become indifferent to the ideals and principles on which the country was founded.
the Neocons, lead by Cheney and Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feith and Rove put the sock puppet Bush on the stage and we followed him right into the abyss. virtually every aspect of American life, every institution, and, yes, this includes the military, and many millions of individual Americans are complicit in this debacle.
if we should decide that we are ready to really recognize our responsibility in this shameful mess we may, eventually, restore our nation in some meaningful way. i am not sure we are ready. the last i heard, impeachment is still off the table, but even if it isn't it's probably too late before the sock puppet has made his last exit, stage right.
a lot of other things need to happen but if we aren't willing to confront the blatant criminality that urgently lead us down to the depths where now we find ourselves we stand just as guilty. what happens when cancer is ignored?
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"Slack-jawed yokels" like you?
Ellie Pants... Lots of liberals like to mock the slack-jawed yokels who think that Saddam Hussein's Iraq orchestrated the 9/11 attacks.
The thing I love about the internet is that traces of your brilliance (or stupidity) remain forever, if you know where to look, like the background radiation of the big bang. In your case it's the stupidity of a dishonest, slack-jawed yokel.
Matt Margolis Says:
October 22nd, 2004 at 5:44 pm
todd, you’re falling for the same old scheme…
have you read the 9/11 commission report? or even flipped through it? Would you like my copy? I have several pages bookmarked that mention Iraq/Al Qaeda connections..
You have to see a difference between Al Qaeda and 9/11.. Iraq may not have been involved in the planning of 9/11, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t have connections with Al Qaeda…
Kerry2004 Says:
October 25th, 2004 at 8:06 pm
Oh please, Matt.
Elephant Man Says:
October 27th, 2004 at 9:17 am
Kerry2004 didn’t finish his/her sentence.
I’ll give it a try.
“Oh please, Matt, stop citing sources like the 9/11 commission report! Doing so exposes the democrat talking points as mindless rhetoric and fabrications! I beg you, STOP!”
http://www.mattmargolis.com/blog/archives/2004/10/17/john-kerrys-pre-911-mindset/
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Butt before you leave ass first, Ellie pants
Please do tell us how, Lyndie England managed to be court martialed for a crime, according to you, she had not yet committed.
England faced a general court-martial in January 2005 on charges of conspiracy to maltreat prisoners and assault consummated by battery.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynndie_England
The Battle of Abu Ghraib refers to an April 2, 2005 attack on United States forces at Abu Ghraib prison, which has been called "...the largest coordinated assault on a U.S. base since the Vietnam War...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Abu_Ghraib
Assface... I'm not talking about the battle to capture the Abu Ghraib fortress, in which I am confident the U.S. Marines did not merely break fingers, but also killed a large number of Iraqis. In battle. That's why they call it "a battle."
After its capture, the Abu Ghraib prison fortress was again utilized as a prison and interrogation center, which is when Specialist Graner and Private Lynndie England (not Marines) arrived with the rest of the 372nd Military Police Company and their lazy dumass commander, General Janet Karpinski, to get their freak on and take some snaps, shortly before being court-martialed and sentenced to 10 and 3 years, respectively. There were no Marines court-martialed or investigated in the Abu Ghraib freakshow.
We are all confident that you are confident that you can explain this temporal anomaly.
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Dean Edley's View of Academic Freedom
The fact that the memo came from Boalt Hall got me to thinking about the controversy about the appointment of Erwin Chemerinsky as dean of the new UC Irvine Law School, and I ran across this article by Dean Edley written at the time (it will be recalled that UCI initially hired Chemerinsky, then rescinded the hire, then rehired him after a nonpartisan firestorm of criticism of the rescission).
http://berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2007/09/19_edley.shtml
Dean Edley's views of academic freedom in this article, not the claim that UCI backed away from Chemerinsky for political reasons, are what is "risible." (his word) If you are establishing a new law school with no profile, and you hire a high profile dean like Chemerisnky, you do so for exactly the reason that you want him to continue to comment on public affairs, only now he will do with the byline, "Dean, UC Irvine Law School."
When you compare this to his statement about Yoo, you can really see the hypocrisy. Yoo was not defending an unpopular defendant or prosecuting a popular one. He was not giving the best legal advice possible to a client in a difficult situation. Instead, he was giving "advice" to order, assuming the conclusion and then using whatever thin arguments he could muster to fill in the blanks. And the advice was, in the main, being given in advance of the actions. An honorable lawyer would have reached the opposite conclusion and then, if told his advice was not welcome, resigned.
It is perfectly appropriate for an academy to subject Yoo's actions to intense criticism. It is more than appropriate to do so when the result is the death of many people and the significant destruction of the good opinion of the United States of America in the world.