Thanks for the clarifications. I find that we are in substantial agreement on many issues; perhaps most.

Little Brother, I'll add a few thoughts myself.

I am not a fan of strong and powerful governments of any kind. They usually end up (always end up?) tyrannizing their own people. I am not positive that, in general, democracies are better than monarchies. I am not positive that our form of democracy (or republic for the pendants out there), is as good as Britain's form. I do not believe that the constitution was an improvement over the Articles of Confederation.

All that said, I live in a country that has a very strong, brutal central government. I live in a country that has a constitution. Since I do; I want to see it enforced to the letter. If it is wrong in any way, then amend the document in the way provided for in the constitution itself.

"Use it, or lose it" comes to mind for some reason.

I cheered the Democratic Parties victory two years ago and hoped that we would start trying to live by the constitution. I was disappointed.

I believe that every official should be bond by the constitution and be charged with treason when he breaks it. (hanging would be good)

I am continually charged here with "absolutism" as if that were a bad thing. It is always folks looking to avoid some first principle. For example, the thread where we yelled back and forth over "torturing a baby" if it would save many lives.

As always, I say no to any torture. You may never, ever harm another who is an innocent. In that, I am an "absolutist". I would not harm an innocent to save the human race. So how could I support torture? Even if it worked (it is only to get false confessions), the man I question is an innocent by our laws until he is proven guilty in a proper court of law. (due process and all that)

Note: The above thoughts worth every penny you paid for them.

steve confessed he is part cherokee and I am part Pauite and I have heard about some lost tribesmen who still believe in torture (performed on the White man) and perhaps steve is one

of this lost souls but brother (steve) lets put on the ghost shirt together and let's dance it away

just like Obama will do it in the whites man capital!

Wow. That girl make me want to see Spanish.

Rejali records water tortures (he divides them into 'pumping' and 'choking', waterboarding is one of the latter) by mostly Nazi client states and by the NVKD. Since the latter is part of the Allies, perhaps this is what you meant? Specifically, he ascribes most of the water torture to Christian Masuy with the Milice (Vichy France) and in Czechoslovakia, as well as the Soviet Union. Gestapo not so much, no mention of American use until Vietnam, except much earlier: In the Phillipines with the near tacit approval initially of President Teddy Roosevelt, in World War I against conscientious objectors, and in the 1920s by police. It was used by Japan in China (but not elsewhere until late in the war).

Don't know where you got your information, or your author, but I'd expect Rejali to know about it and put it in his compendium if it was as widespread as you claim.

just listen only to her 'spanish' songs and you might be able to!

Aside from the legal requirements that Glenn outlines so well, a case can be made that the way to "move on" as a society is not to simply ignore, deny, or forget the harm that was done but to follow a process that actually begins to resolve our political, psychological, and spiritual issues involving our country's abuse of human rights. The justice system can provide an important aspect of that process. Investigative commissions, individual and community grieving, an open political process, and frank, honest acknowledgment by national leaders are other needed aspects. The process is necessary in order to "move on", and especially in order to assure a national value system based on zero tolerance for torture in the future. The way out is through.

Dick Cheney last week in an interview with Wolf Blitzer casts his usual downplay of torture authorization from the Bush administration. In this interview he claims that there were no cases of waterboarding after 2003 and that it was limited to only 3 individuals.

Glenn, please do another favor and find out how big these lies really are. Usually when I hear lies coming from the Bush administration, I multiply by 10 and then we're close to the truth. Thus, I am betting there is a hell of a lot more cases of waterboarding after 2003.

Please expose the Dick Cheney lies and cast more light on his role in authorizing torture.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0901/11/le.01.html

That's nice, but I am more interested in Steve's perceptions of torture. He appears to be quite a fan. I am curious about his contempt for the Constitution.

I'll sign off after this post.

But I'll leave you with this:

Let's say you're in Afghanistan, near . Your job is to go from one small village to the next, doing house-to-house searches, looking for Al Qaida.

Between villages, you intercept a small group of people who are in transit to who knows where. You use metal detectors, and on them you find four grenades (one of them hidden in a woman's vagina), and two cell phones (and yes, one of them hidden in a woman's vagina.)

You know that the simple knowledge of where they were coming from, and who the are on their way to see, would probably save lives -- possibly yourself and your friends.

This is not an abstract argument; it's an actual situation that a few 20-some year old guys might themselves in during war, under Bush or under Obama.

They have to decide how badly they want information. Hopefully, they can buy it for a few hundred dollars.