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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
What is needed in order to put an end to the Bush torture regime are absolute, unequivocal, and transparent legal prohibitions governing interrogations, ones that are devoid of ambiguity, flexibility and secrecy. -- GG
I guess I should figure this from a lawyer but what good are more laws if people aren't going to follow them? Didn't we have a law against torture before? Weren't the Geneva Conventions supposed to be all we needed? They certainly seemed to be absolute and unequivocal and worked for years until John Yoo and BushCo. What happened to that set of laws? Since they were no longer good enough - didn't McCain sponsor some new law (a farce) which was supposed to stop all the torturing?
We don't need any new god-damned laws. We have too many of them as it is and the only people subject to them are the peons. Who suffered Courts Marshal and did time for Abu Ghraib? We don't need new laws. We need some real accountability. New laws won't mean shit if there is no accountability. You want to stop torture? Torture team decision makers swinging from ropes (figuratively or literally) is how you stop torture.
Does anyone honestly think we are a nation of laws and not men at this point? New laws will be about a successful as more Democrats.
Horton is also a discussant in that DN segment with Goodman. Well worth watching or reading transcript at link provided.
"Protecting the nation and its citizens is the first priority for any country."-- wbgonne
No it's not! What a cowardly viewpoint! This is real life, not Hollywood! The top priority of the US government is to uphold and adhere to OUR LAWS!
I would MUCH rather live in a free society where I may die (the former United States) than an authoritarian state that “protects me” (the post 9.11 insanity).
even there the definite answer seems to be No to torture and if you insist on calling Obama a Pragmatist he will do what he promised.
You never, ever trust our "leaders"! That was the central message of the founding generation --- man is not to be trusted with power. You can not handle power, gentle reader, nor can I. Nor can Glenn. Nor can a Buddhist monk.
In a democracy, secrets are the first and most dangerous enemy of the people. (I have proof of this, but you will have to trust me on it as I can not divulge my source)
You are one of the few principled analysts out there, who do not shift and bend due to the party behind the injustice. Great job!
but I finally got through to Feinstein's DC office. It seems her phones are pretty busy this morning. The young man who answered tried the "but only in instances of true emergency" line. I countered by questioning how we can know in advance those cases where it is justified and then referred to the great Matthew Alexander interview RMP linked us to for how even when we do it at an "appropriate" time, torture winds up as a recruiting tool for the other side. I asked how Feinstein could chair the Intelligence Committee and advocate torture.
The call to Wyden's office went through on the first try.
When the Gretchen Question comes up, how many more Dems will give us the feinsteinwieselantwort?
You two stoke my all-American cynicism, but your heartfelt comments also stoke my all-American hope.
I'm sort of an HBG (my father's from Berlin) but I'm also an FBA, and so are you two.
We're all just folks. Or just mutts, as some guy in Chicago joked.
I read somewhere that everybody on earth is a 13th (or closer) cousin of everybody else on earth.
There must be "flexibility" in "extreme cases."
No. If our principles have "flexibility" then they are not principles. Anyone can be an angel on a sunny day, as is clearly the case with Feinstein and Wyden.
One of our principles is that we do not torture. We respect human rights. If we abandon this, we are no better than the jackals who you wish to torture.
Further, all so-called "ticking-bomb" scenarios like the one you gave are bogus because they ignore one thing: torture does not work. People will say anything - anything - to stop the torture. And what they most likely will say is what they think you want to hear, not the truth. So--with the clock ticking--are you willing to be led astray because you used torture instead of more effective methods?
Like Tomhere said: "24" is garbage. It's not how real-life works.
and we've praised the crap out of him for taking the correct unequivocal stance on this torture insanity. Now I'm going to have to get on the phone everyday for a month and bash the crap out of him until he comes to his senses again.
And Wbgonne, you should read what JPK1000 wrote. If you don't understand the proper role of government in our society you must have been smoking dope in civics class you frightened little baby. You know what's really sad, but it's people like the majority of commenters at this site that would give their lives to try to stop the government from coming and taking you in the dead of night for a little "enhanced interrogation" for "alleged imminent crimes". I doubt the same could be said for you.
Torture is immoral and a sin (for those religious readers), it is ineffective, and it creates risk rather than prevents it. The America I believe in is done if we get this wrong. And it'll be the straw the broke the camels back. I'm outta here if the Dems and Obama cave on this. Because a county that tortures isn't one I want to be affiliated with. Shit I might as well have been born in Uganda because this if flipping insane that we are even having this discussion over and over and over and over . . .
Why ARE Feinstein and Wyden changing their tune?
What do they have to gain by this new stance? What new job, new alliance, new popularity, do they think these statements are going to generate for them? Are they pandering to someone? If so, who, and for what?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
