http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21320

The New York Review of Books
Volume 55, Number 7 · May 1, 2008

The Terror President
By Anthony Lewis

[...] I grew up believing that Americans did not torture prisoners, as Hitler's and Stalin's agents did. There were rogue episodes of American brutality, but to make torture a national policy? Unthinkable.

[...] Most Republicans in Congress have defended President Bush's claim of the right to use such methods, evidently as a matter of political solidarity. The corruption has even touched the man who more than anyone has been a symbol of resistance to torture, John McCain. Senator McCain led Congress in 2005 to pass the legislation reiterating the ban on the military's use of torture. But when it came to extending the ban to intelligence agents in this year's Intelligence Authorization Act, he sided with the president. It was as if he were saying that the North Vietnamese who so cruelly tortured him as a prisoner were war criminals if they were soldiers — but not if they were intelligence agents.

Torture Nation

[...] George W. Bush can seek his God's mercy for trying to legitimize torture by Americans. But here on earth he cannot escape judgment. For me he will always be the Torture President.

But the rest of us do not have to resign ourselves to being a Torture Nation. The Washington Monthly devoted its current issue to the subject of torture as American practice, publishing brief essays by figures across the political spectrum. Col. Lawrence B. Wilkerson, U.S. Army (Ret.), who was chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, wrote: "We must start now to recognize our crimes and our complicity. [...]"

- - Anthony Lewis, NYRB, Volume 55, Number 7 · May 1, 2008

It is implied between the Glenn lines? The politico is defiled. The politician is not fooling the masses of better citizens. A fake-fraud dem/repub may walk in a airport stall, or a Capital Hill restroom with a soft 'Charmin' napkin, paper towel, and try to wear a phony smile, a disgusting smirk, a grin. but.... I agree with you too casual_observer. What can you say to a smirker? 'Um will toss a angry stare at two youg lover in an embrace and then exchange a soft, and sincere kiss. Genuine.

`

Capital Hill can call forth a Hospitality Convention? Call together all foreclosed home grievers, and innumerable victims of sundry crimes perpetrated by bankers, CEO's, and bozo politico's. See The Ring around the White Clerical Roman Collar? SHAME. W.C.C.C. White Collar Criminal Criminals? Darn tootin`

@ a Capital Hill "Pep Rail Rage" event,

invite wounded soldiers, AMA victims,

insurance fraud, pharmacist quacks. etc.,

(imagine a long list of legitimate grievances)

Yea. Sit down to Listen. It's now a real bad joke!

John McCain on Capital Hill? He may as well invite therapist?

Yea. Invite anorexic teens, cocaine addicts, and George Bush.

Brace yourselves for another "GG hates the Jews" thread.

I grew up believing that Americans did not torture prisoners, as Hitler's and Stalin's agents did. There were rogue episodes of American brutality, but to make torture a national policy? Unthinkable.- Anthony Lewis

This kind of willful hyperbole is just another symptom of liberal inability to be honest. Does this person really think we are torturing and killing millions of people like Hitler and Stalin? Of course not, it just shorthand for someone incapable of effective expression.

While I'm at it, let it be remembered that extraordinary rendition was pioneered by the Clinton administration. From Richard Clarke's book...

Clinton recapped the arguments on both sides for Gore: Lloyd says this. Dick says that. Gore laughed and said, 'That's a no-brainer. Of course it's a violation of international law, that's why it's a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition

But this equation is not even shared by actual Israelis, nor is it shared by the majority of Americans. An overwhelming majority of Israelis -- 64% -- favor negotiations with Hamas. Two-thirds of American voters generally "believe that Israel should continue to negotiate with the Palestinian Authority, even in the face of terrorist attacks."

This reminds me of the "human shields" that went to Iraq prewar, in order to preserve hospitals and such. I remember laughing when they were stunned to find out they would be placed in front of military targets instead.

While such idealism is laudable, as foreign policy it is suicide. What part of any Palestinian accord is trustworthy? Why reward terrorism? How has giving Gaza over has worked out? Personally, I think we should let Israel off the leash and let them do whatever they want. Like the Dem primary situation, only full scale war is going to resolve the standoff.

Holly, my wife read the exchange and made me sleep on the couch. I was lucky I was indoors, really.

Come on, Derbig. Are you telling me that your wife doesn't know what "shiksa" means in Jewish?

. . . via the rendition (transfer) of a prisoner TO another country, to be tortured by them. ("Grabbing somebody's ass" isn't, itself, rendition. Actually, it's the opposite of rendition, though it might precede a subsequent rendition.)

Times have changed.

Nowadays, why outsource?

"I grew up believing that Americans did not torture prisoners, as Hitler's and Stalin's agents did. There were rogue episodes of American brutality, but to make torture a national policy? Unthinkable."- Anthony Lewis

This kind of willful hyperbole is just another symptom of liberal inability to be honest. Does this person really think we are torturing and killing millions of people like Hitler and Stalin? Of course not, it just shorthand for someone incapable of effective expression.

"[T]his person" (that is to say, Anthony Lewis) is one of the more august legal commentators of the 20th century, having written a couple of seminal books on various aspects of Constitutional law. Sh**ter's never read them, of course.

Did Lewis say that the U.S. was "torturing and killing millions of people"? No. Did he say the U.S. was torturing people? Yes. That's a fact that even the Deciderator-In-Chief is unapologetic about. So who's the one engaged in "hyperbole" here? Why, it's our resident eedjit Sh**ter!

The maladministration maintains its "right" to torture because they're doing it for "good reasons" (at least so they say, but for another view on that, click my sig). But let's be clear about it: They not only say that they're torturing, but that it is "legal" and that it is a good thing they're doing so.

Cheers,