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Thursday, December 4, 2008 12:00 AM

Why do Feinstein and Wyden sound much different on the torture issue now?

The two Senators spent the year emphatically insisting that the CIA's interrogators comply with the Army Field Manual. With Democrats in control, they're not so emphatic any longer

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  • Friday, December 5, 2008 09:24 AM

    @ehillesum

    Your post certainly simplifies. I guess along with your contention that the Democrats must now temper their positions on the country's core principles due to being in power, a converse is available: The Republicans who for years denied doing the things they were accused of, now freely admit to it and claim that the Dems will change nothing.

    They must DO something with the really bad guys at Gitmo whose countries don't want them back. Do you think these Senators want them in their neighborhood?

    Missing from this little piece of fractured information is the fact that the two obstacles to repatriation are that: 1) The Bush people insist that any country accepting these men continue to hold them without charge indefinitely. Horrible as some of the prison practices in some of those countries are, they refuse to accept guilt of their citizens based on Bush/Cheney say so. 2) The Bush administration continues to assert that they are terrorists in some cases even though there is no such evidence, and it is that assertion which makes those countries not take them back. When you have no evidence of wrongdoing, in countries more civilized than that which you Republicans tried to make of the U.S., a man is judged to have not committed a crime.

    They must DO something about how to get information out of men and women who are willing to blow up innocent children and themselves to further their ideology.

    Ah, finally! A Republican admission that female prisoners were kept in the Afghan gulag as well! Go to hell for all the incommunicado detentions and abuse of women and children in Afghanistan and Iraq. You got no information from any of it, and all of it was a war crime. People who advocated it should be less welcome in any law abiding neighborhood in America than pedophiles.

    Do you think these Senators want one of these terrorists to detonate a biological device in NYC or LA on their watch--especially if it is later determined that they had in custody someone who--with a bit more pressure, might have talked and prevented the tragedy?

    Do you know how hard it is to create a biological device? The only biological attack in this country (excepting the smallpox infected blankets given by settlers to the Native Americans) was created and effectuated by people at a U.S. military bioweapons laboratory. There have been none elsewhere. This is pure fear mongering, and it is affecting the country's health. For instance, smallpox exists only in two government laboratories in the entire world, and was eradicated as a disease twenty years ago. Only because of some dopey Republican think tank scenario on terrorism presented to our ego up, pride up, expertise down vice president, does it entertain any interest at all. Do you realize that more money is spent currently by the U.S. government on smallpox than on all of the work on traumatic brain injury? Even though it is by far the most common injury coming back from the wars you so vociferously support.

    Way to support the troops there, winger boy! But thanks for the admission that the U.S. has held and tortured women. Its been a long time coming.

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