Behold the next meme, sure to be coming to a talking head near you (via):
Arlen Specter is quoted (link when I can find one) as having said that prosecuting Bush administration officials would be like something done in a “banana republic” and like “Latin America.” John McCain says prosecuting will have a “chilling effect.”
Isn’t that the point of prosecuting crimes- to have a chilling effect on future potential criminals? I know deterrence is always cited by death penalty advocates.
I have no idea if Holder will decide to prosecute people for any of this, and realize that if it happens, DC will just explode, but at the same time, if these people did commit crimes, why shouldn’t they be prosecuted? And I’m sensitive to the fact that people may have done things in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 that they may not have done otherwise, but some of these memos are from years after 9/11. We have clear evidence how this stuff spread from Rumsfeld’s desk to Gitmo to Abu Gharaib. Hell, there are several dozen detainees who are still missing.
What are we supposed to do when our government has done this? Just look the other way because otherwise it might be politically difficult?
Walker
Feature, not a bug.
asiangrrlMN
I said it before, and I’ll say it again. Cheney and his ilk learned while sucking at the teat of Richard Nixon that it’s all right as long as the president did it. Forty years later, they put that mentality into effect once again, and that’s how we got into the mess we now are experiencing.
If we let them get away with it yet again, then Cheney will rise from the dead forty years from now and wreck our country once again. The only good thing is I will most likely be dead then.
Why are they still allowed to talk? Why are they even relevant any more? They need to be treated by the press and by us as the criminals they are.
Just Some Fuckhead
I think we should at least try to prosecute ’em. What’s the worse that could happen?
Cris
I believe the phrase is “just keep walking.”
Malron
John, the “9/11 made me do it” argument is a cop-out.
Gus
I’ve already seen the banana republic argument somewhere else, I think on a comments page somewhere. That didn’t take long.
jenniebee
Democrats are going to have to do pre-emptive house cleaning if they decide to go ahead and prosecute, because Republicans are going to be so determined to get revenge, they’ll let no stone go unturned looking for a way to get it. I doubt they’d let so much as an illicit blow-job between consenting adults go without blowing it up into an impeachment-level scandal after this, so Dems, be forewarned!
Notorious P.A.T.
Hey, I only knocked down that old lady and stole her wedding ring because I needed money for my heroin habit. Otherwise I neeeeever would have done it.
SpotWeld
Is “bannana republic” going to be another one of those terms that looses all meaning among the pundits?
WereBear
I agree.
Except so many of the people who are supposed to point fingers would have to point them at themselves.
Cris
But at least it’s a cop-out! “We need somebody to confess to a connection that doesn’t exist” isn’t even that.
NonyNony
Damn. Fucking. Straight.
I hear these guys – not just the talking heads but also former CIA people and what not – giving this “guys in the field will be worried about prosecution if they do things even if the White House has given the a-okay on the legal front” and I think “Yeah, dumbasses, that’s the FUCKING POINT”. In the military, if an officer is given an order that he knows runs counter to the military law he is fucking obligated to disobey that order and report his commander up the chain. We had a whole big trial at a place called Nuremberg that laid out very clearly how this was all supposed to work and what would happen to military folks who step out of line even if they’re just “following orders”.
The whole fucking point of this is to STOP IT FROM HAPPENING AGAIN. It fucking SHOULD be a chilling effect to make a CIA interrogator think for a moment and say “if I subject this prisoner to the same treatment that John McCain received while he was a POW in a Vietnamese prison camp, will I go to jail?” and then refuse to carry out that order or be willing to face the consequences in front of a jury.
These guys aren’t this dense so I can only assume that they’re just catapulting the propaganda and hoping no one thinks for more than a second about the crap coming out of their mouths. Since the journos they’re talking with don’t seem to, it may unfortunately be a safe bet on their parts.
JL
@SpotWeld: Unless textbooks are wrong. I just don’t remember the rules of law meaning much to thugs.
El Cid
Right, because the first thing you think of when you think of a “Banana Republic” is an overwhelming propensity to allow the legal system to investigate and prosecute lawbreaking by high members of government.
Amirite? You know, all those juntas and caudillos continually going to jail and prison for their illegalities, those damn banana republics!
Stabetha
Questions for the talking heads:
1. If these officials have done nothing wrong, then why not welcome these investigations? (haven’t I heard that somewhere before?)
2. If these methods are acceptable, then it’s ok if other countries / groups use them against our soldiers, right?
3. Why did the US call for Japanese soldiers executed after WWII for waterboarding our soldiers?
In WWII, German units would try to surrender to our guys, but would fight to the death against the Soviets because they knew they would be tortured and/or killed by the USSR.
While I was in Iraq, I saw first hand that terrorists / insurgents / whatever you want to call them would fight to the death because they didn’t want to be captured. They had seen the pictures from Abu Ghraib and other places that showed people being tortured, and instead of surrendering, they fought tooth and nail, often killing more of our guys. One of the things that often came out of the detainees (that I saw) is that they were treated far better than they thought they would be, and had expected to be tortured.
Sorry, this post is too long, but I get too worked up about this stuff… I find it dispicable that anyone would defend these actions when they have been proven on the battlefield to cause more deaths of our men and women.
PS: This is the line in the sand for the GOP? They are willing to go down swining over torture? I just took a look over at Freeptardville, and they are threatening armed revolt in the street to protect Bush and Cheney from trial.
asiangrrlMN
@WereBear: Hm. Yes, this is true. I am sure there are plenty of current Congress people who knew more than they have admitted. I, for one, agree with jennibee in that Democrats have to clean house before the Republicans do it for them.
In the meantime, Rove, Cheney, Gingrich, etc., need to STFU already.
Just Some Fuckhead
DougJ called, he wants his dead horse back.
El Cid
@SpotWeld: Yes.
John Cole
@Just Some Fuckhead: I couldn’t resist with the colonels in mirrored sunglasses comment by Rove.
John PM
No, if we were a banana republic, then the entire Bush administration would just suddenly disappear and their bodies would turn up several years later (if at all) with a single bullet in the back of each head in an obvious group suicide attempt.
P.S. – If I ever meet Karl Rove in person, I will punch him in the fact repeatedly until he cries like a little girl.
r€nato
No blowjobs here, nothing to see, move along citizens.
gbear
If by ‘chilling’, they’re refering to having to spend a few years biding time in federal prison, I’m all for it.
r€nato
Hey, remember those shrill cries of “RULE OF LAW! RULE OF LAW!” by all those Republicans 10 years ago?
Maybe I was just imagining that.
John Cole
Look. There is a difference between understanding and excusing something. I can completely understand that the Bush administration, after having 3,000 civilians killed in horrific terrorist attacks, might go overboard and do things that in retrospect we all recognize as awful. I think this is especially the case when you consider the national mood. Just today, Atrios linked to Jonathon Alter talking about torture in 2002.
Understanding is not excusing.
jenniebee
@El Cid:
High-five!
Seriously, Republicans impeach a popular president for having an adulterous blow-job, and now they’re talking like they haven’t already shot their wad? What’s left, are they going to watch Sasha and Malia and sweep in with a SWAT team for the arrest if the girls ever miss picking up one of Bo’s turds unless everybody agrees to turn a blind eye to Republicans’ little torturing and warrantless wiretapping proclivities?
Notorious P.A.T.
Boy, wouldn’t it be terrible to live in a banana republic? A former president would think he could do whatever he wanted to do so his son could become the country’s leader. . . a tiny minority would possess wealth beyond avarice while pretty much everyone else had to struggle to get by. . . cops dressed as soldiers or soldiers dressed as cops going around kicking doors down and taking people’s stuff, guilty or innocent. . . oh, wait, someone who broke the law might get put on trial. Now that’s a scary thought!
gbear
@Stabetha:
I realize it’s a typo, but it was so perfect that it needs to be posted again.
El Cid
@John PM: Actually, quite a few heads and former heads of state of 3rd world nations seem to vanish when their small planes go down. And a couple of our Democratic Senators.
asiangrrlMN
@John PM: Is it wrong of me that just for a fleeting second, I actually wished this would happen? Just for one second, though, because I still couldn’t wish that on anyone.
ohollern
Isn’t torture something that’s also characteristic of a banana republic?
Ed in NJ
How ridiculous is it that the cable stations and news shows are allowing Cheney, Rove, and other Bushco. members to speak without offering a disclaimer first. These are the architects of the torture policy that is coming under scrutiny. Is it too much to ask the mainstream media to recognize that everything they say has to be taken with a grain of salt?
Barry Soetoro
You know what’s really funny? The fact these clowns did NOTHING to cover their asses in the eventuality that someone would get a hold of the evidence and tell everyone what happened. I thought Cheney and Rove were masters of hiding and destroying records.
Did they truly believe that the GOP would retain control of the Presidency and Congress for a thousand years?
r€nato
@ohollern:
sure is. Good thing we don’t torture; we merely use extra-legal interrogation techniques.
Notorious P.A.T.
Even that doesn’t mean they should not be prosecuted. Just because someone knowingly breaks the law, with the best of intentions, doesn’t mean they are immune. I’m thinking, for instance, of black Americans refusing to use separate lunch counters or sit at back of the bus. Not to draw equivalence, mind you.
valdivia
This is wrong on so many ways I don’t know where to begin. Hmm.
Let’s see.
1. The mirrored sunglasses banana republic style ‘justice’ is exactly what we just got out with the Bush administration and Obama is trying to fix
2. The mirrored sunglasses banana republics were supported by the republicans as the vanguards against communism.
3. Rove is @@#$&*()_)_.
4. head has exploded out of rage. have nothing more to say. Orwellian transformation of language is on the march.
spot check billy
No Arlen, in “Banana Republics” the torturers walk free because it would be too unpleasant or dangerous to bring them to justice. The ability of these people to get things exactly backwards never ceases to amaze me.
Awesom0
Everything NonyNony said. Amen to that.
Mike G
Amirite? You know, all those juntas and caudillos continually going to jail and prison for their illegalities, those damn banana republics!
The Argentinian junta thugs wound up in jail after fucking up the Falklands invasion and losing. And many lesser figures went to prison for “following orders” in the Dirty War massive-scale torture and murder of dissidents cheered on by Republicans, including such charming activities as throwing prisoners out of planes into the Atlantic.
I think we can and should aim at least as high as Argentina in enforcing the rule of law. Of course no blowjobs or corporate crony payoffs are involved, so we can’t expect Republicans to show any interest.
Zifnab
@John Cole: And I understand how, after 9/11, you might have some skin-heads throw a brick through the window of a mosque. I mean, I am able to comprehend how and why it happened. They were bigots. The mosque was an easy target. The brick was laying on the ground. Things just came together.
But when you say, “I understand how Bush might go a bit overboard and repeatedly torture a pair of individuals for over 240 hours (that’s ten straight days) trying to force them to confess to a link between the most recent terrorist attack and a country they’d wanted to invade since they first set foot in the White House” it almost sounds like you’re apologizing for them.
You’re not a douchebag, so you should definitely get the benefit of the doubt. It just sounds off-key is all.
smiley
Just remember, Clinton was impeached because they believed he committed a crime while in office – perjury – but he wasn’t prosecuted after he left office. I know, I know, totally different. They didn’t really have a case. But given the right-wing hatred of Clinton, you’d think they would’ve at least tried.
smiley
@r€nato: Damn this place moves fast sometimes.
PaminBB
More projection by the Rovester. The Mayberry Machiavellis are the ones who set up the banana republic-like government, including the election rigging, abuse of power and extensive public corruption.
joe from Lowell
Me, too. If the people involved in this threw themselves on the mercy of the court, confessed what they had done, and asked for forgiveness on those grounds, I would certainly be sympathetic, and probably even support pardons.
But not if they continue to insist that what they did was right, and appropriate, and that we should continue to do it.
It’s like the Rodney King beating. If those cops had said, “I lost my head, this guy staged a high-speech chase and then attacked us, and I went too far,” I would have understood that. Instead, they sat there on the stand, watched the tape, and said that every single blow they struck was correct and appropriate.
smiley
@jenniebee: I swear I read the preceding comments before commenting @40.
Cat Lady
@John Cole:
John, it’s always bothered me that there’s an underlying assumption that we should understand the motives for the post 9/11 horrors inflicted on the Constitution and Iraq as Bushies over-reacting to that event. I always felt in my gut that they saw 9/11 as nothing more than an opportunity to do exactly what they did, with clear eyed intention. Richard Clarke and Paul O’Neill as much as said so, which is why they were thrown overboard. Overreaction would have meant bombing Mecca or some such thing, since the hijackers were mostly Saudi. That would have made sense. What they did made no sense in terms of retribution. They took advantage of everyone else’s true sense of patriotism and violation to push that other agenda. It worked.
scav
Gotta love the corner where the Tough on Crime (TM), Family Values (C) Moral Majority (R) crowd have ended up waving their flags and defending their civilization.
I gotta reset my logic circuits. I’m getting seasick from all their positions today.
gnomedad
Torture: banana republic.
Prosecuting torturers: not a banana republic.
It will be on the quiz.
bvac
I don’t get it. Scooter Libby was prosecuted and it didn’t have a latin american vibe to it. The Abu Ghraib thumbs up woman whose name I don’t remember was prosecuted and it didn’t make guards start putting on the kiddy gloves when dealing with prisoners (hopefully it did have a “chilling effect” on the practice of connecting car batteries to their testicles.) What is the big deal in this case?
West of the Cascades
Rove constantly citing “some Latin American country” is also a grotesquely condescending and offensive description of the current state of governments south of the U.S. border. There are no “banana republics” in Latin America any more – every country is currently a democracy, where the individual holding the highest office gained a majority (or plurality) of the popular vote (OK – excluding Cuba – but all of the continental nations in Latin America are fairly-elected democracies).
Which, of course, distinguishes Latin American nations from the Bush Banana Republic of 2001-2005, during which Jefe Supremo Rove wore the mirrored sunglasses …
Rosali
Her name was Lynndie England. If I recall correctly, they were all in favor of having a few low-rank soldiers take the fall for implementing their interrogation techniques.
Ed in NJ
I guess the other thing that bothers me is that it seems as though waterboarding, sleep deprivation and stress positions were picked as the preferred methods of torture specifically because they were the easiest to brush off as not that bad. I guess we needed to use anal probes and pull out fingernails for some people to understand why it is wrong.
Just Some Fuckhead
@smiley:
Smiley, that’s because the goal of impeachment was to get him out of office. Duh. Once his second term expired, that goal was accomplished.
Carnacki
“What are we supposed to do when our government has done this? Just look the other way because otherwise it might be politically difficult?”
Here was my take at West Virginia Blue, but several commenters worry it’ll be a bad move politically.
Politics be damned, I say.
JenJen
Ouch…. unrelated, but CNN just reported that GM will close most of its US factories this summer, for at least nine weeks each.
Times are about to get even tougher out here in “The Rust Bowl.” :-(
scav
Too big to prosecute? It’s OK if You’re One Of Us? take your pick.
eastriver
I say they go after Rove first. As much as it pains me to think that I won’t get the retinal-searing image of his fat ass wedged into an XXL orange jumpsuit (“The new black!”), I believe he would totally roll over on all the others, including Shrub. He would go Full Fredo.
Because what the prosecutors will be looking at will not be just torture, but murder. If prisoners died because of direct orders to perform extra-legal acts that caused death, well, ahem, we’re getting into Stay Of Execution territory.
I imagine there will be pleas and so forth before these things ever get to trial. But as more details come out — and come out they will — all non-winger citizens will demand some sort of retribution and accountibility. (That’s the ironical downside of a puritanical society for the holy-rolling rightwing; desire for public humility and destruction.)
Fun times on the horizon.
El Cid
@Mike G: The Argentinian junta wound up on trial many years later after the junta fell, in part due to its war with Britain over the Falklands / Malvinas.
(Fascists often fall when their military prowess is challenged, which is why I thought the Bush Jr’ites were done for the moment the U.S. public understood what a mess Iraq was. When the Angolan and Mozambican colonies showed that they could possibly fight off the Portuguese, the Estado Novo collapsed.)
So the “banana republic” period, if applicable to Argentina, would have been before the junta fell, and before the democratically elected government began following Spanish prosecutors’ leads and then began overturning amnesty agreements.
To the Karl Rove types, Argentina as a U.S.-propped up military tyranny was just great, and law abiding, and the period after the junta fell when decades later trials were (and are still being) held for the former tyrants and murderers and kidnappers and torturers — that post-junta period was the “banana republic”.
valdivia
I would like to see the Chilean Ambassador or the Costa Rican ambassador reply to Rove in an op ed and schooling him.
JK
I’m sick and tired of people pretending that Arlen Specter is really a Democrat in Republican disguise. Specter is a scumbag, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. John McCain can truly go fuck himself. He channeled Joe McCarthy during this past campaign and accused Obama of treason by claiming he’d rather lose a war than lose an election. McCain needs to retire to his 11 or 12 homes already.
Karl Rove and David Gregory should give up punditry and go on the road with their rap act.
Keith
Proof once again that the GOP has zero idea how global warming works.
binzinerator
@spot check billy:
It is intentional not accidental. The right accuses the left of fascism to innoculate themselves against charges of the same. Banana republic government and banana republic justice is exactly what the conservatives have given this nation. Which is why Rove is now attempting to accuse his accusers of it.
Everything the right accuses others of is exactly what they themselves are up to. It’s fucking textbook. It really is.
jenniebee
@Zifnab:
That’s how the Bushies got so many people on their side. A lot of people can understand, like John, going “a little overboard” at the time, and were able to defend the actions that they imagined they themselves might authorize under the circumstances
…never realizing that something on a totally different scale and for a totally different purpose was actually occurring. Who would have believed at the time that the Bush administration had captured a couple of guys and were torturing them until they confirmed the wish list of raisons de guerre that their tormentors put in front of them? I’m a DFH and I always figured the Bushies would just lie, I never dreamed they’d go all Torquemada on someone. But I suppose if your goal is to manufacture evidence, torture is a time-tested and efficacious way to go about doing it. Worked for Stalin.
Mr. Stuck
It matters how it’s done. A Commission might defuse the political explosion some. If Obama were to go full on Fitzmas, we may need to start building new bleachers around the fields of Manassas.
Corner Stone
@John PM:
But why? He’s an awfully decent chap. Why, I remember one time when I supped with he and his beautiful family. The stuffed quail were delicious.
/Broder
*This* is why all these scumbags are allowed to talk, allowed to spread their venom on TV and get out the talking points to their allies. All the people that should be hounding them mercilessly as if they were on assignment for the O’Reilly show, the same people loves them some powerful and elite.
scav
Ambassadors? We haven’t even seen any frats object to the official US characterization of their parties. We haven’t heard any Good Christian Mothers express wide-spread and Earl-Grey-loose-leaf Apple-Pie concern about their tender children going to such parties.
El Cid
@joe from Lowell:
I think it’s more like if they pulled Rodney King over and beat him every single day for 8 months, and then said ‘well, we didn’t want to take any chances, he might have been planning to speed again.’
Calouste
In a banana republic, if the generalissimo does it, that means it’s not illegal.
smiley
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I don’t think you read my last sentence. BTW, the Obama version of The Clinton Chronicles is out.
El Cid
@valdivia: That’s a damn good suggestion.
someguy
Get it through your thick heads, wingers. The U.S. under Bush was no better than any pissant banana republic with death squads, and for that matter our particular susceptibility to support this kind of thing probably makes it worse despite the overthrow of the last regime. We probably need nuremburg trials and maybe death sentences for the chain of command to try to keep this kind of thing from happening again – that’s what it took to get the Germans over it, maybe it would work here.
Laura W
No Earth Day Open Thread yet?
In the spirit of the day, I’m going to sit here in the dark for the next hour.
Comrade Dread
Yes and Yes.
One law for the common man, another for the elites. It’s the same sense of entitlement that the nobility used to have.
It’s a narcissistic view that they were above the law, that they were wiser than the rest of mankind, that they transcended simple morality.
Thank Raskolnikov, but with more asshole added.
sparky
see, this totally makes sense–laws are fragile, delicate things. if you try to use them against very important people, they might break. and that would be bad. also, impolite.
if, on the other hand you are a nobody being strip-searched in a school, or make an international phone call, or send an email anywhere, then you can just stfu.
Calouste
@binzinerator:
Can’t be repeated often enough.
tripletee (formerly tBone)
Still wouldn’t work. I’m guessing there are former members of the Bush Administration who pay good money for that kind of treatment.
My Prius rolls on dubs
END OF STORY:
If the Obama Administration starts up a legitimate prosecution of Bush and his cronies, it’s what he will be running on in 2012.
He can govern and try to pass some seriously needed bipartisan legislation for the betterment of 300 million Americans, or he can engage in a gigantic partisan shit throwing festival and lose to Huckabee in 2012. Not only that, but do you seriously think they’re going to take Bush off the Crawford Ranch in handcuffs? Make him do the perp walk?
C’mon guys, you’re not that politically retarded are you?
smiley
@spot check billy: Excellent point. Rove is being very Rovian.
Svensker
Didn’t they get the memo? We ARE a banana republic and they’re the ones who brought it on.
(Somebody probably already said this. Work is swimming around my eyeballs and I can’t see too good…)
stickler
Soetoro asks:
This has fascinated me, too, and for years now. In particular the aggregation of power in the Executive branch. Back when I actually tried to dialogue with the wingnuts, I’d ask “how would you feel about Hillary having that kind of power?” And they’d scoff at me.
What was going on, I think, was some kind of faith-based approach to politics. The true believers _knew_ that they were right, but they also _knew_ that to show doubt meant a lack of faith. And that might, by itself, doom the project. Not unlike dead-end defenders of Berlin in March 1945: to recognize objective reality was to betray the Movement and the Leader. These folks believe in “Willpower” so much that they’ve taken leave of the mundane world we live in.
Walker
Because of the current clusterf*ck that is the Republican party, this is a contradiction in terms. He can either pass bipartisan legislation or legislation for the betterment of 300 million Americans. Not both.
valdivia
@El Cid:
I have sent some emails to some of the chilean intellectuals I know and they are very very pissed. I am hoping someone with a very big name writes something soon. I will report here if I hear anything.
smiley
@Laura W: But are you going to turn off your computer and not follow this thread? Hmmm? (That means that if yes, you can’t respond until at least 6:33. Can you do it?)
JL
@John Cole: Torturing to try to CYA and find information in order to Iraq is wrong. That is just something that I can not understand or forgive . 9/11 did not change the fact that we have rules of law that have to be adhered to.
scav
Politically – yeah, well, I guess it all depends if you put your chances of a second term over the legal foundations and international standing of your nation.
Elie
For what its worth, I think that we let this play out a bit in the public discourse. We have to let the public hear the gory details, and some of who might be implicated — and also the lousy, whiny excuses…
Yes, wrong should be punished but there are a lot of punishments and there are also other very important considerations. I am not making an argument that we should trade of justice for the political capital to get health reform or other things. I know that it is not that simple. Still, we know that bringing these people to justice will be extremely ugly — extremely. It will unleash crazies already highly aware and energized to make even more trouble and distraction. And its probably even more ugly than we know..
Is that justice worth all of this? Will we clothe one more child, give anyone one more health care service? Does our security come from the threat of punishment alone? We drive and obey traffic signals and a variety of other things not just because we will be punished…isnt why this happened, the illegal use of torture, more about our own inability to address stopping it at the time? Is what we need punishment, or an invigorated and empowered public to oppose this anytime it is instituted…
Valvidia who frequently posts here is from Chile and expressed the complexity of meeting out justice and the complexities of that.
This (trials and investigations) is/are not a solution that I believe should be implemented emotionally or reflexively, but carefully and with full public push. I think that Obama will do it if pushed, and I think that is the right way…he should be pushed by our citizens — absolutely 100%.
Patriot
Fuck these people.
Spector, a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying going after torturers and those who authorized it is like being in a Banana Republic. What the fuck are you talking about? Have you gone completely fucking crazy like the rest of the sociopaths in your party? Stopping and punishing criminals. Did you forget you’re a lawyer? That’s the whole fucking point. Arlen, shut the fuck up, stop embarrassing yourself or turn your law diploma to the wall.
McCain, did you forget that you got stomped in the election. You of all people saying let torturers slide. What a fucking good shipmate you are to those who got tortured more than you as an Admiral’s son in Hanoi. Chilling effect? That’s the fucking point for felons to stop them and others from committing the same crimes again. Who wants to hear your incoherent inconsistent bullshit anymore? Shut the fuck up.
And Rove, you candy-ass, who the fuck wants to hear any of that bullshit that comes out of your chickenhawk mouth. Shut the fuck up and go the fuck away.
And Democrats who want Truth Commissions, who want to look forward and not back, who don’t want to politicize any possible future inquiries against the most politicized criminal politicians, lawyers, flunkies and bootlickers ever, who don’t want to indict and prosecute criminals, shut the fuck up and do something.
Democrats, that’s what the fuck you were elected for. It wasn’t because you’re cool. It was because it was the only way we could overthrow the regime. Congressional Democrats weren’t doing jack shit about it. If you let these rat’s ass pieces of shit skate without doing something about it, your asses will be voted out as soon as your next election happens. The Reid/Pelosi no impeachment bullshit after the midterms should have done it to you but we wanted to get Bush and Cheney’s asses out of there before Cheney could convince Bush to declare martial law. They’re out now, Democrats. You don’t have to cower and wet yourself in front of Bush or Cheney or the remaining goosesteppers who still hold office. Man the fuck up. Do something. Hell, go down fighting once, for a change.
All Republicans, Democrats and anyone else who committed crimes before, during or after the Bush administration along any who aided, abetted or conspired to commit crimes should be indicted, tried, acquitted or convicted. And if convicted, thrown the fuck in prison to get a little taste of what a day in the life of a wrongfully imprisoned person in abu Gharib or Gitmo must have been like.
That’s the first step to this country recovering from the domestic warfare that Republicans have waged and some Democrats have allowed to be waged in and against the United States over the past eight years.
El Cid
@valdivia: I’d almost suggest Eduardo Galeano, capitalizing on the recent exposure, but both the Latin American (i.e. Vargas Llosa) and U.S. right despise him so much it would just be its own distraction.
John PM
@asiangrrlMN: #29
I don’t think the feeling is wrong, because I think the typical response to a traumatic event is fear and/or anger, and an overwhelming feeling of wanting to hurt the person who hurt you. After 9/11, my dad, a police officer at the time, said that he wanted to go our and beat up the first Arab cab driver he could find. However, he did not do this, which speaks to the difference between decent people and the Republican Party. The Bush Administration’s behavior is especially disgusting in that it (1) continued for years after 9/11 and (2) was used to extract confessions that could be used to tie Al Queda to Iraq and justify an invasion.
With that response, were I to meet Karl Rove, I would not actually punch him in the face.
As an aside, I have noticed that all of the Republicans now defending the OLC memos are either (1) non-office holders (Gingrich, Rove) or (2) Republican Senators from safe seats. Oddly, neither of the senators from Maine have said anything, IIRC, and I do not recall any Republicans in the House of Representatives saying anything about the memos. Where are Boehner and Cantor during this uproar?
HyperIon
@Ed in NJ:
I believe those picked up in Afghanistan had suppositories inserted before they were hooded, diapered, and shackled in place for the long flight to Gitmo. Then there are Sy Hersh’s assertions that tapes exist of various other “cavity violations”.
Mr. Stuck
@valdivia:
Me too. Though it would likely rouse Kissinger from his nap in the Heritage Foundation boiler room. Sorry, that should be stink tank/
scav
Elie. This. Is. Public. Discourse. Being. Played. Out.
va
The “Latin America” schtick is dog-whistle stuff playing on Hugo Chavez.
My Prius: Part of me thinks Obama could run on prosecuting the Bush admin in 2012 and WIN. But that’s probably wishful thinking. Already on the TV I’ve heard “legal analysts” talking about how prosecutions would “inevitably be incredibly partisan.”
God, the Bush years have been such a fucking mindfuck.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@My Prius rolls on dubs:
Prius beat me to it, but: I completely agree that BushCo is a gang of criminals, and deserves to be treated like it. But just think of the implications: if prosecutions are undertaken, and then work their way up to the level of, say, a Rumsfeld…… good god what a shitstorm. It will define BO’s presidency, eclipsing all else.
I have no wisdom or solutions. Just glad, on multiple levels, that I’m not Obama.
HyperIon
@Laura W: why not go outside and sit in the sun?
robertdsc
I can’t help but wonder what President Ford would think of what his former chief of staff and Secretary Of Defense have become. I think he would be deeply disappointed.
me
Liberty Tower? I guess Rove really does has a mind meld with GWB.
LD50
I just had to share this breathtaking example of projection:
JL
@smiley: Don’t forget they spent millions and millions trying to find evidence to prosecute Clinton. My memory might be fading but last I heard, I think it was over 100 million. The office was still in place during Bush’s first term.
asiangrrlMN
@John PM: Yeah, I know it’s a natural impulse to react in an angry, hateful way. As you so aptly pointed out, the difference is that Bush and company fueled that anger and hatred rather than curbed it.
Elie, I don’t think we can move forward until there is justice in this matter. I am not asking President Obama or the Department of Justice to move on this immediately, but the perpetrators must be held accountable.
As has been argued before, we can both work on universal health care AND prosecute war crimes. You set it up as an either/or when it doesn’t have to be.
In addition, if we do not correct this travesty, then we cannot complain when our citizens are tortured by other countries. We have no standing on morality in the eyes of the world.
Finally, if we let this slide by once again, it will happen twice as badly in the near future. If no one is held accountable, future presidents will look to Bush and his cronies and say, “Hey, I can do at least what they did.”
I am more than happy to hear President Obama say that prosecution is not up to him and that no one is off-limits. That is the proper response. I don’t care how long it takes as long as it gets done.
Just Some Fuckhead
@smiley:
I hope not, I really enjoy your perspective.
gwangung
I’d just run his face into a wall. Four or five dozen times. With a collar to prevent whiplash, of course.
Laura W
@smiley: No, I’m just gonna sit inside the house refreshing BJ, watching MSNBC, cooking some meat in the oven, and doing a load of wash. The important thing is, I have NO lights on. Interior, or exterior!
@HyperIon: Oh gosh. It’s nearly as sunny and light in the house as it is outside here in beautiful Western NC! Besides, I don’t have a teevee outside, and all the sunshine makes my computer screen hard to see.
KG
@76: some things are more important than elections.
Crockpot
It is very jarring to read something like this and agree then one click away you get The Belmont Club still supporting torture.
J Bean
Oh please. They spent years trying to dig up dirt on Bubba. The third special prosecutor (the one after Ken Starr) finally concluded that there was nothing there. They were reduced to classifying his discussion with Ariel Sharon about Marc Rich and then selectively editing what they chose to release in order to make him look as bad as possible. Fuggers.
LD50
Wow. I really made a hash of the blockquoting there. The last paragraph was part of the quote, obviously. :-{
kay
@LD50:
“The Democrats can’t stand on their policy, so they have to personify an enemy. It’s the politics of personal destruction.”
That’s ridiculous. Newt Gingrich or Rush Limbaugh don’t personify the Republican Party? They harm ‘the brand”, so we’re supposed to pretend they aren’t Party leaders ?
Of course they are. If Gingrich and Limbaugh are horrible and unappealing, and they are, why don’t they get some new Party leaders?
MS-4
Immediately in the after math of the release of Abu Ghraib photos there was a huge increase in violence against U. S. soldiers and a resultant spike in casualties. So by authorizing torture techniques that were sub human, not only did these assholes drag this country’s image through the sewer, they were indirectly responsible for many soldiers’ death. I believe these people –every one of them–who authorized these egregious acts and those who justified it’s use through the memos they wrote must be prosecuted, period.
Elie
91. Scav —
I agree. This IS public discourse but I think we need more to push it. Blog posts aint gonna do it in my opinion. Marches, people loading up the benches at hearings, tons of letters to the editor — heating up the keyboards alone will not
Valdivia – sorry that I mispelled your name and perhaps erroneously represented your interests and point of view. I seemed to remember your measured assessment and discussion on the problems of getting justice for mass criminals. You were much more articulate than I so please correct me as necessary.
smiley
Laura W: Okay then. You are being green. Must be hard.
binzinerator
@Cat Lady:
Exactly.
To my mind there’s a difference between killing someone while blinded by a moment of intemperate rage and that of calculating, premeditated murder. It’s that clear-eyed intention that makes it especially heinous. Not only are the Bushies and their enablers trying to convince the nation what they did were not crimes, they are also attempting to backstop that by saying, in effect, well if some of what we did was bad, it was only done in a fit of passion in the weeks following 9/11.
It was fucking premeditated. And they spent months and years doing it. The Iraq war and the torture, and probably a helluva lot more.
For me the clear-eyed intent means the Bushies have earned a place swinging on the end of a rope, a place just like the one the world gave in Nurnberg to criminals who had committed similar pre-meditated clear-eyed war crimes.
LD50
Wingnut mode: “That’s why torture has to be kept secret!!!!”
arguingwithsignposts
Isn’t G. Gordon Liddy a convicted felon, also Charles Colson?
Shame. Not a part of the GOP brain.
Dennis-SGMM
Heaven forfend that we lose the wholehearted and good-spirited cooperation shown so far by the Republicans. As for Huckabee, he couldn’t even beat the other Republicans.
valdivia
@El Cid:
I think it should be someone like Bachelet (though maybe she cant be the one to write it) someone who was tortured, whose family suffered from the torturing and who knew that Pinochet was the one wearing the mirrored glasses and meeting out Banana Republic justice. The Ambassador from Argentina (last name Timmerman) is an expert on human rights and his family suffered during the Junta. He would be ideal. A big group of ex presidents and diplomats and intellectual would also be very powerful.
@ Elie–
My issue all along was that meeting Justice always has a political component that might break any political consensus in the country regarding issues of human rights abuses. In Chile we waited a long time–some people were never prosecuted and we still have the Pinochet Constitution as our own– but everyone knew what happened. And we are conseidred a democracy, a thriving one, by everyone. The reason there was no push to do it was that everyone there understood the price we would pay in blood if we pushed it, even if it was the right thing to do. We had lost too many peopel already to not choose to move on and deal with it when the political climate permitted it.
I think if Obama is pushed to do prosecutions now, he might not win a term in 2012. Holder decides, of course, but a Truth Commission might be the best solution for right now. Get the truth out there first and then do prosecutions later.
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
I dunno, you tell me, John. Who would you prosecute, and for what crimes, and how?
The guy who thought it was just unbearable that the ungraceful Cindy Sheehan carry a sign by the side of the road to embarass George Bush now wants to drag the country through some grotesque and miserable series of prosecutions and circuses? A guy who defended the potatohead government while it was doing these awful things now wants to make sure other people are held accountable, since the citizens who voted for them and defended them cannot be?
Or do you just want to spend every day trolling your little band of ptichfork wavers and making them bark for you?
valdivia
An issue that I have not seen raised is the fact brought up by McClatchy this morning about torture as a way of getting the link between Al Queda and Iraq. *This* to my mind is very important because it makes clear the torture was not about 9/11 but about the next war.
Elie
We are stepping onto a new plane now…
Has the United States ever had internal “truth commission” type trials or hearings?
We have massacred Native Americans, robbed them of their lands, screwed them out of agreements in treaties, interned Japanese American citizens, enslaved black people and Lord knows what else. Why is this different? (Not intending snark or oppostion here, just hopefully making some important thinking points in these very meaningful deliberations) The closest was the impeachment of Nixon, but then he resigned and Ford pardoned him.
None of the above had international implications. Is that the only distinction, and if so, why is that any more important than the crimes we perpetrated on our own?
Do we now believe any of these horrible crimes are any less horrible because no one was imprisoned? Is being tried and convicted the only consequence that matters to provide justice and correct our way going forward?
I want a completely, scaldingly debated discussion of this all over the media and public domain… the darkness must be examined and decisions made. These people are revealing themselves — it is extremely important to bear witness to this whole process and to hear clearly what is being said and to prepare ourselves for horror and more pain…Sometimes it is not cleansing right away and sometimes not for a long long time.
Rommie
This feels like a Hail-Mary pass by the GOP. If they think they can pin Obama into the mud wrestling match of attempted prosecutions, they might feel they *finally* have the silver bullet to take him down in 2012.
Because, of course, they are innocent of any and all charges that have been or will be made, being the ones who know The Real Truth(tm) so they can’t possibly be found guilty, and Obama is exposed as “He is who we thought he is! See!”
In other words, they are trying to trap the trapper. This could be special…
Library Grape
Did anyone else forget this gem of a quote from Dubya’s own lips on the eve of the Iraq war?
HyperIon
@HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker: ouch
JGabriel
121 Comments in less than 2 hours? People have been busy here.
John Cole @ Top:
I suppose someone has already noted this, but I totally agree with Specter, though perhaps not in his spirit – acting like a “banana republic” come to its senses is what happens when the previous administration acted like a banana republic. It’s exactly what they deserve.
.
John Cole
You are just making shit up, you old fart. My problem with Cindy Sheehan was, from the beginning, that she was obviously unwell and that I thought it was tragic all these people were latching on to her. And guess what? When it became obvious to EVERYONE that she is unwell, you all dropped her like a hot fucking rock. And I never once fucking defended the Bush administration on torture or any of the other abuses at Abu Ghraib or elsewhere.
Additionally, only someone wanting to start a flame war could read this post and say I am giddy about dragging the country through a circus. If anything, I wish the whole thing would just go away.
Blow it out your ass.
JGabriel
valdivia:
It certainly confirms that the Bush administration was using torture for its traditional purposes: extracting false confessions.
.
HyperIon
@valdivia:
but i thought that one did Truth Commissions INSTEAD of prosecutions. maybe i am thinking that Truth Commission = Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
LindaH
This is why I think Obama is trying to thwart criminal prosecution of the previous administration. Unlike Rove and company, he knows that there is no such thing as a permanent majority. And he know that the Rethugs are incredibly vindictive and will be out for blood if they ever get in power again. After Nixon was indicted, they took the first real opportunity they had and impeached Clinton. I really believe they would have tried it on Carter, but Carter was a basically honorable man (for a politician) and he did anything that could be twisted into an impeachable offense. Let’s face it the Rethugs only had a simple BJ to pin on Clinton. That is pretty weak stuff.
Obama can’t get us out of Iraq over night, so he will preside over this war, as well as military activities in Afghanistan. If the economy goes south and the Rethugs get back into power, they will hit back by accusing Obama of War Crimes for any minor mistake that he makes. Look at how Rush Limbaugh suddenly became concerned about the rights of black teenagers after some of them were killed rescuing the Captain of the boat that the pirates captured.
Do I think that everyone involved in torture should be tried? Yes, but I also understand the practicality of Obama saying he doesn’t want them prosecuted. It may be telling that he did appoint an Attorney General that seems to have no problem saying “too bad, that is MY call, not the President’s”. One way to cover himself is to say put it all behind us, while having the actual person who can make the decision go the other way.
bvac
@John Cole:
Can we really be 100% sure that her campaign office wasn’t bugged by Nancy Pelosi, though?
Elie
Valdivia —
“The reason there was no push to do it was that everyone there understood the price we would pay in blood if we pushed it, even if it was the right thing to do. We had lost too many peopel already to not choose to move on and deal with it when the political climate permitted it.
I think if Obama is pushed to do prosecutions now, he might not win a term in 2012. Holder decides, of course, but a Truth Commission might be the best solution for right now. Get the truth out there first and then do prosecutions later.”
What you write is consistent with how I had thought of what you had previously written. Seeking justice is complex. If all we mean is holding trials, the technical interpretation of “justice” we could do that — but we would not necessarily get full justice — there is no unringing the bell or taking back the tradeoffs and missed opportunities for other actions.
I am conflicted and of two minds about this. I do think that exposing these people and the horror they perpetrated is important. Not sure that a trial and punishment is necessary beyond that. Everyone would know. Everyone.
We need a lot of things right now. Not sure we need punishment in the legalistic trial and verdict kind of way. We do need health care, we do need economic safety and we need a healthier environment both socially and ecologically. I place those priorities above the reality that we would never get this trial justice without trading off all of those and without blood running in the streets. The right wing spooks have bought out all of the shot gun shells just about. I say this not out of fear per se, but is this process more precious than those alternative actions for us? I just question it.. But I want the truth out…
JL
@valdivia: John had a post about this earlier today. After reading the report, I decided that my anger could be better used working out side planting and preparing garden beds.
The 9/11 commision was a waste because it was partisan in nature. Hopefully, a special prosecutor will be appointed.
Mr. Stuck
One of those memory erasing gizmo’s used by The Men in Black would be nice, if they were real. I’d almost be willing to forget about the good things that happened the past eight years, if I could remember any.
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
Well I see you haven’t changed in 4 years. Anybody who doesn’t kiss your ass because you post cute cat pictures can blow it out their ass.
Whatever. The fact is, you can’t, or won’t, answer my question. Who would you prosecute, for what crimes, and how?
The only analyses I’ve seen of that issue “out there” so far all seem to point to the idea that these prosecutions start to look pretty problematic — and that is being totally euphemistic — at best. At best. At other than best, they look like pipe dreams. Forget about the political problems, I am just talking about the legal and practical problems of advancing such cases at all. Do you have information to the contrary?
You were pretty much an admirer of these people just a few years ago, so you should have some insights now into how to go about this grotesque, ugly trainwreck of a thing you are suggesting?
Or were you just trolling your own blog again?
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
I didn’t say you were giddy about it. I said that is what would happen. Would you like to argue otherwise, or just keep flicking your bic at the straw?
62across
I’m a long time lurker and first time commenter, because I really want to back up Elie.
Since it’s not being brought up enough by those calling for Obama to do more, I was really glad to see John note that DC will explode should there be prosecutions. I think this is undeniable and I think the arguments that “we” can work on both prosecutions and the other items in Obama’s agenda seem to forget how Clinton’s agenda was stopped in its tracks by the whole Lewinsky circus. Rather than pressuring Obama to act, I believe it’s critical for more to be done to raise the public outcry. We have to create an atmosphere where the prosecutions are coming from a public need for justice and not from the Obama administration. It is the only way the prosecutions won’t completely derail Obama’s agenda.
Cat Lady
@binzinerator:
That’s the only argument that’s going to possibly be effective going forward to mitigate against the disgusting details that are going to start coming fast and furious when the on-the-ground torturers start talking, now that Obama promised them they won’t be prosecuted. Smart move, that.
The stories today about torture being used to concoct a false justification to invade Iraq will be the torpedo into the hull of that argument. Connecting the dots will be critical now. Thank god for Josh Marshall and Greenwald.
NobodySpecial
Um, Mr. Cole?
I’d be a lot more understanding if I’d never read this in….2002.
With the intelligence all pointing toward bin Laden, Rumsfeld ordered the military to begin working on strike plans. And at 2:40 p.m., the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying he wanted “best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H.” – meaning Saddam Hussein – “at same time. Not only UBL” – the initials used to identify Osama bin Laden.
Now, nearly one year later, there is still very little evidence Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. But if these notes are accurate, that didn’t matter to Rumsfeld.
“Go massive,” the notes quote him as saying. “Sweep it all up. Things related and not.”
They wanted their war, and they didn’t care who they had to torture or lie to to get it.
binzinerator
@Patriot:
Damn right.
And damn right again. And fucking damn right to everything you said between.
It makes me want to scream. This whole issue is gonna define the course of this country over the next century. And what I hear about these conservative fuckers and their apologists (I’m looking at you, Peggy Noonan, you fucking shitstain) is ugly and desparing and revolting.
Listening to the right wingers try every means to defend torture and avoid prosecution is like listening to a rapist arguing that the reconstructive surgery to the child he raped should not be construed to mean he did anything particularly wrong.
Oh, yeah, and we shouldn’t prosecute. It would have a deleterious effect on the free action of the rapist in the future.
Christ. What the fuck is wrong with these people? Fucking sociopaths. Honest to God these people really are.
Mr. Stuck
Valdavia said
Yes!
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
@Mr. Stuck:
Put me down for that approach. Great suggestion.
valdivia
@HyperIon: Truth Commissions do not necessarily preclude a conviction later on. In cases where the political situation is such a Truth Commission sometimes gives immunity in exchange for the information which cannot be gotten to any other way. In this case a Truth Commission could just serve as a way of having the conversation we never had about torture and what happened during the Bush years, to let the facts be out there in the public domain without immediate *plans* for prosecution but without immunity either. And after all the info is out there then a consensus of disgust can be built to actually have these prosecutions. The reason i think this is important is because it defuses the political bomb a little without compromising the justice aspect. The fear of the guys on the other side is making them go nuclear and not in a good way. This is not about making sure Obama gets another term it is that if Obama does not get that other term we *do not know* what sort of terrible thing the rump republican party of the wingnuts might do in power.
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
You know, I used to think so. In fact you can mine these pages for many examples of my saying so, especially a few years ago, on a regular basis.
But I have doubts now. I am more and more convinced that the idea of ascribing to evil that which is actually the product of stupidity might be ill-advised, in terms what we are supposed to learn from it.
The more I look at these guys and listen to them, including Darth Cheney himself these days, the more I am convinced that they are just stupid. That they really thought this was the way to go, the war, the abuse, all of it.
John Cole
It has nothing to do with kissing my ass and everything to do with making things up. There was more bad faith bullshit in that comment than I managed to pack into 2 months of posts during my wingnut heyday.
As to whether I would prosecute, I don’t have access to everything Holder has access to, nor do I understand the legal complexities separating when an attorney advising the CIA crosses the line and when they are just giving advice. So I don’t know. I just have to hope Holder acts in good faith, because all the information is not out there yet.
As to people who obviously broke the law, then of course they should be prosecuted. But I’m not a lawyer, and I can’t make those determinations.
From a political standpoint, I think DC will just explode. And I also think that the moment a Republican is President again, they will prosecute every Democrat in sight in retribution. That is just how these guys roll.
Dennis-SGMM
Truth Commission? Okay, as long as the commission’s report doesn’t have to be approved by Congress and as long as it isn’t stuffed full of hacks from both parties (Because there are damn’ sure Demoicrats who knew about this shit and kept silent). Otherwise, the report will consist of three words: “Mistakes were made.”
Steve V
I’d just like to second whoever it was that said if prosecuting these guys makes us a banana republic, what did the impeachment of Clinton make us?
I also second 62across’s assessment that Obama wants to get his agenda going more than anything and this obviously would be a huge distraction. On the other hand, I think we all know that the GOP won’t hesitate to seek Obama’s impeachment whether or not torture investigations/prosecutions are pursued against the OLC guys or anybody else. It’s not like the administration can bank good will with the GOP by opposing accountability.
Elie
-62 Across
Welcome to posting.
I am actually not sure that even with public pressure backing him that the prosecutions would not be immensely distracting and again, as you and others point out, what are the tradeoffs — or justice yes, but at what price? Who pays and again why is this “justice” more important than the “justice” of healthcare and economic progress?
I am not even sure about a truth commission. Not sure we can get even that without a lot of noise and resistance. Why? Because to my mind, many of these people will be found guilty in the court of public opinion and rightly so. But they will not go quietly down. Think of the tea parties with armed screaming skin heads. Think of the noisy distraction away from getting the Congress or anyone to focus on the boring but necessary political trades that will need to be made for other legislation…these folks will be running for the hills…
I dunno. We do need justice and we do need truth. We have to find a way but to do it without hurting other equally or more important goals…
valdivia
@Mr. Stuck:
glad to see I am not the only one who thinks that.
In reference to Elie’s comment–I too think it is very important for the Greenwalds (and others) of the world who have been recriminating Obama for not prosecuting etc to see the reaction right now from the other side and the press at jus the possibility of accountability for this crew. It is indeed right that not only DC but a big part of the country will explode if the prosecutions happen.
One of the advantages of leaving the door open for a prosecution while releasing information in the form of a Truth Commission is that these people get tainted for life *and* are always looking over their shoulder not sure what will happen. This is what happened to pretty much all the guys down South.
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
Wouldn’t it be simpler, then, to expose the abuses, and the abusers, and put roadblocks in place to prevent future ocurrences?
Simpler, cheaper, faster, more effective, and politically rewarding. A maxi version of the mini approach you have seen in the last week or two, followed by action and legislation to steer away from such abuses in the future.
The country deliberately built a dangerous war machine from the ground up. It can be modified, and subdued, from the ground up.
El Cid
John Cole: C’mon, you have to amuse the rest of your readers with the Wonkette-pushed video of dumbass Texas Republican Congressman (but I repeat myself) Barton who began spreading around this YouTube video because he thinks he just showed up Mr. Fancy Pants Book-Larnin Fu-Man Chu, Energy Secretary.
When you ask a question at a Congressional hearing and all the scientists you’re asking laugh, it could either be a very good thing, if you’re really being clever, or a very bad thing, because you’re really, really dumb. It’s the latter.
Tonal Crow
@John PM:
But Karl Rove has no “fact”. You could, though, punch him in the lie; that’d be like shooting fish in a barrel.
Mr. Stuck
And Mr. Cole’s thread did not address how prosecutions should be done, or how this mess should be investigated. As far as I know, he supports a TandR Commission first. I took the thread post as a general rebuttal of Karl Rove’s nonsense and Spector’s and most of the rest of GOP America. The message of no harm no foul, just politics as usual. It is NOT politics as usual. These fuckwit sadist’s have made me a citizen of a country that tortures people to get politically useful info for their stupid and bloody policies, IE, torturing Iraq prisoners for tying AQ to Iraq to vindicate Herr Cheney’s bloodlust. I want them held accountable in a way that does the least amount of damage to the Obama admin.. He did not invade Iraq or torture people and is needed to fix the country in other ways. That is why all out Fitzmas should be avoided.
The people of this country voted GWB president, and they through their reps in congress should do the dirty work of dragging the truth out of these shitheels. When that’s done ,and if America has the stomach for it, then prosecute away.
If not, we live with the stain of torture on our collective souls forever. I believe it will be a cancer that may even do us in somewhere down the road.
HyperIon
@valdivia:
thanks for addressing my question. but now i have another one. or several.
how do you get facts out there without immunity?
do you think the CIA field types will take BHO at his word and line up to spill the beans without formal immunity?
somebody is gonna get immunity.
and that has to come from a prosecutor.
i would like to understand what you are proposing exactly.
suppose there is a truth commission.
what do they do?
they interview people.
will they be interviewing Ashcroft?
will his lawyer be there?
will the “testimony” be sworn?
Fern
@HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker:
I thought there already WAS legislation against torture.
r€nato
@John Cole:
Well, I for one am not about to allow this threat to change my mind about whether they deserve prosecution. I’m just one person with no power in DC beyond my vote, but I support war crimes prosecutions for those who deserve it. It was possible to protect this nation after 9/11 without resorting to torture, without resorting to illegal and unnecessary wars.
This is clearly not political retribution by Democrats. War crimes were clearly committed. There is enough evidence out there that, once fully aired, the Republicans will have a hard time getting elected again to federal office. I have confidence that the voters will punish any attempts at retribution by Republicans as payback for investigations and prosecutions.
Besides, these fuckers (the Rethuglicans) trumped up an impeachment against Clinton because he committed the unforgivable sin of occupying St. Ronnie’s White House. They screamed “SORE LOSERMAN!” because Gore wanted a fair recount and look how long Norm Coleman has dragged out the MN recount in a blatant attempt to prevent Al Franken from being seated, with little to no pretense that this is about righting a supposedly crooked election.
Cowering from doing the right thing because the bullies threaten to do something nasty in return is idiotic. Bullies are going to act like bullies until they get a short, sharp shock (or three) in the nose so that they know they’d better go pick on someone else.
Dennis-SGMM
@Fern:
Yes, but not against “harsh interrogation methods”. Perhaps the sorriest part of this whole episode is that the door has been opened to torture. No matter what sort of legislation is passed some future idiot will decide that physical coercion isn’t torture then they’ll dream up another euphemism and torture the crap out of people.
valdivia
@HyperIon:
in each country this was done it has been under different guises. The reconciliation part is usually because they are trying to get to the truth about violence related to a civil war type of situation. In the Guatemalan case the Truth Commission was lead by a Bishop (last name Gerardi, later killed by the military because of the report) and conducted as an investigation.
I don’t have a concrete idea of how the truth commission would take place here–it could proceed as an investigation lead by an independent fact finder. ahead of time the fact finder might have to have the authority to give some people immunity but not to others. My idea is that you do not give blanket immunities to *all* the players and you do not state you will or will not prosecute. Also–it would involve the release of all information relating to the torture program, which may not require giving anyone immunity as we have a written record of what their positions and arguments were.
I see that at Commentary (via Sullivan) they are clamoring that Obama lied and released only the information that he wanted and now they are pushing for a release of everything. if that is not a jedi mind trick to have these people *asking* for transparency I do not know what is!
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
@Fern:
I’m talking about policy and administrative roadblocks.
Criminalizing something is a blunt force, clumsy, expensive and unnecessarily complicated solution.
The current circumstances should provide an ideal example. By threading the spaces in the laws, and abusing that resource, these guys have pulled off a stunt that may not be addressable with criminal prosecutions, and even if they are, only at great cost and pain … when it would have been simpler to just put roadblocks in front of the abuses in the first place. I am pretty sure the intelligence and security wizards can put protocols and procedures in place to prevent this stuff from happening.
And of course, if you really want good government in the middle of security crises, you insist on constitutional congressional authority and oversight. Go back to having congress declare wars. Build the effectiveness of the oversight and the mechanisms that balance power between branches, and check the executive. It doesn’t do any good to rely on criminal sanctions and then have congress .. and the public .. basically roll over for, and shrug at, everything the executive decides to do whenever something bad happens.
That abdication of the power of the people, through the congress, sends a signal to the executive that it should do whatever is necessary — the Cheney approach — to crush the threat. In that atmosphere, criminal sanctions against tactics just become the rubber cones on the road that the Cheneys of the world can drive around.
eemom
I started out being against the gung-ho for prosecutions for many of the reasons mentioned above.
But the disclosure that these purely evil criminals did it for the purpose of backing up their lying warmongering, instead of some freak out about 9-11…….plus the crawling of vermin like Rove and Cheney and so-called American Hero John McCain out of the woodwork today to fight it……… plus last but not least the fact that I am forced to behold the hideous mug of Rove at the top of my favorite blog, have made me change my mind.
And it’s not Obama’s job, it’s Holder’s. And it IS his job.
Mr. Stuck
I think how it works, is the people the commission decides have relevant info are made an offer to truthfully tell what they know and all they know. If they do this, then they are given immunity from prosecution.
They generally start at the bottom rungs of power and work their way up. The folks at the bottom will almost certainly take the deal and provide more and more incriminating evidence on their highers. At least that’s the theory, if there is wrongdoing.
Most will take the deal until you get to the hard core loyalist and those concerned about their legacy. Like Bush, Cheney and others. That’s where it will get dicey, as I expect they will bring the Supreme’s in to settle constitutional questions of separation of powers. If and when that gets settled and depending on the outcome, the commission will make a report outlining their findings. That’s where the DOJ comes in and decides to prosecute, or not.
This is how I heard Leahy explain it a while back, though I might have forgot some parts.
The really good part is in dealing with classified info. It would be readily available to cleared commission members and would speed the process up. Compared to going the normal prosecution route of the DOJ, when handling classified info would be a nightmare of motions and delays.
Elie
Hyperlon 150 —
I think that you bring up a good question.. What is the construct for the “truth commission”? If there is evidence and information presented, you are right — immunity would have to be given — but that is the construct for a trial.
We don’t really have a way to do this and as I asked way upthread, I don’t think that we have a precedent for it either. So it would be new, untested. Who would call for the Commission and who would run it? The Congress? Lordy, what a blood bath THAT would be politically since obviously none of the republicans would sign on to having one, leaving it under the command of the democrats — a totally partisan and political scene guaranteed to make big time trouble without big time results…
I don’t think that we lost enough. If thousands of our citizens had lost their lives, been imprisoned or themselves tortured, there would be the impetus to move forward and to find a path. Non Americans were tortured in the crazy half world between warfare and police actions. The likelihood of a mass outcry for this from the American people just does not seem high to me.
Better question: What do we do to keep this from ever happening again? Is this less about specific laws than about the power of the Executive Branch? What do we need to do to fix that?
HyperIon
@Mr. Stuck:
i don’t understand.
you think the incredibly partisan congress can drag the truth out of these shitheels?
half the time will be spent with republicans tossing softball questions. the other half will be spent with dems pathetically trying to score points for political gain. the Rs were AWOL for 6 years. when will that EVER change? and the dems? you want shumer asking questions? the congress is a large part of the problem IMO.
smiley
@John Cole: Come mon, John, just admit that you like us better.
Dave C
OT: This needs to be mocked mercilessly.
Mr. Stuck
@HyperIon:
i don’t understand.
you think the incredibly partisan congress can drag the truth out of these shitheels?
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
It is, but that’s because it represents the people. The people demanded a war machine government for half a century or more, and they got it.
If they want something different, they are going to have to express that through the electoral process and elect a different kind of government. They can’t have it both ways … a pit bull mad dog government when it suits them, and then a dog you can kick to the corner when it pisses you off and kills the cat.
Laura W Darling
@smiley: Didja happen to see the Tunch baby pictures I dug out of the archives on demand in last night’s open thread?
I thought that was very impressive. But I’m easily impressed with myself.
Corner Stone
@binzinerator:
No it won’t. Those in power will do what they always do. Remain in power and gently scrub away the truth. They will be the ones to write the history books, not us DFH.
If we don’t prosecute, if we don’t hold up a record of undeniable fact then in 5 yrs, or 15 yrs all this will have been washed back to nothing more than a few bad apples taking out their anger. And someone else more frightening than Cheney, or more evil than Rove, or both will be installed and allowed to do whatever s/he wants.
Mr. Stuck
@HyperIon:
I should have added if not clear, that members of congress won’t be members of the commission. that’s the whole idea of trying to limit politics as much as possible.
The Cat Who Would Be Tunch
@valdivia:
While I’m in the camp of letting public discourse on torture and the response to it run its course with appropriate actions following afterwards, I think that all those calling for prosecutions here and now do have their place if only to shift the debate. If you asked me six months ago whether any official documents such as the OLC memos would ever be released, I would have rather cynically replied “Hell no!”. Seeing the messages from Obama, Gibbs, and Emanuel from last week, I was leaning on the side that Holder would be influenced by the executive branch to not proceed with any investigations. Obama then clarified that it wasn’t his call to make.
Be it that it may have always been the Obama admin’s intent to let the course of justice proceed naturally instead of obstructing it, I think that the pressure on the AG to prosecute from intellectuals, journalists, and other sources must be having an impact.
Like I said, I’m perfectly OK with intermediary steps to take place for now, with eventual prosecutions coming later. But I have no desire to see the situation devolve into the Cambodia-style UN tribunals, the kind where the damn trials start after half the leaders of the offending regime are already dead. Thus, I’m somewhat sympathetic to the cause of Greenwald and his ilk.
Donald G
Linda- The GOP from 1977-81 would not have tried impeachment on Carter because the GOP congressional leadership was still sane and sober.
Through the eighties and nineties, the ideologically brainwashed demagogues who had suckled at the teat of Lee Atwater rose to leadership positions as the older generation died, retired or otherwise lost power within the GOP. The ascendancy of the Gingrich wing, allied with ignorance peddling right-wing talk-radio culture and the entering into public life of the ideologically brainwashed “Reagan Youth” of the eighties culminated in the clusterfark that was the Bush-Cheney Administration.
The death-spiral of a sensible, responsible conservatism can be traced to the far right’s successful marginalization of Rockefeller republicans and other moderates.
jenniebee
@John Cole:
And that’s different from what they do already how exactly? They spent 6 years and millions of dollars digging through receipts for every stick of gum Clinton bought in his life and propping up every two bit skank who thought she could cash in on their mania, and ended up impeaching the guy for getting a consensual blow-job. Obama’s been in office for three months and the wingnut base has been calling for his impeachment every single day of it. Does anybody here really think that if Obama did anything that put him on shaky legal ground that the base would give the Republican leadership any choice other than to impeach?
So I have to ask, how exactly do the Republicans have anything left to threaten Democrats with? Why do they think that warnings that if the Democrats don’t play nice and let them get away with reruns of the Spanish Inquisition that then the gloves will come off will have any impact after they printed purple heart band-aids, questioned Max Cleland’s patriotism and announced on national TV that Barack Obama “pals around with terrorists?”
More to the point, if we turn a blind eye to crimes like torture, what won’t we turn a blind eye to?
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
There’s a pretty strong anti-democratic (small d) theme to your message.
If you trying to invent a way to have government be a good doggie when the people have elected rabid (or just stupid) hyenas, I think you are going to be disappointed in the results. In fact, I think that is exactly what the period 2001-2009 was all about. The people asked for that government. The people demanded the war machine. It didn’t spring out of nowhere.
If you want a better result, the people have to elect a better government. Something along the lines of what we just did last November.
I am not one who subscribes to the idea that the country is doomed because it is capable of making mistakes. In fact, I think it has to make mistakes in order to go forward.
The government we just fired was a mistake. Time to move forward.
John Cole
@Laura W Darling: Oliver, gone but not forgotten.
bvac
The more I think about this, the less gungho I feel about prosecution. Let the democrats stand opposed to torture, and let the republicans defend it to their dying breath. Eventually it will just be another thing that marginalizes them and further paints them as the american taliban party.
TR
Jesus Christ, what a moron. Was that idiot serious? Did he actually not understand the facts of plate tectonics? We learned that in the fourth fucking grade!
And the congressman is posting that to YouTube because he thinks it makes the Nobel Prize winner look stupid?!
valdivia
@The Cat Who Would Be Tunch:
I get your point but I would like to see some recognition (more than just grudging too) from greenwald of the political difficulties involved and less from-the-hip Obama is worse than Bush judgments.
As someone said upthread instead of yelling at Obama why not whip up the outrage in the population, much more productive it seems to me.
r€nato
Apparently not. You see, the ‘theory’ of plate tectonics (and it is only a theory, so we don’t really know if it is true) requires the Earth to be many millions and even billions of years old.
And we know that that cannot be true because the Bible tells us God made the universe in six 24-hour periods about 6000 years ago.
Therefore, Jeebus put the oil there himself, right before he made dinosaurs and cavemen who frolicked together and right after he put all that fossil evidence in layers so as to test our faith.
And earthquakes? That’s God sneezing.
Laura W Darling
Sounds like KO is gonna RIP into this tonight.
Sounds a little, er, mad?
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
@Laura W Darling:
I admire the theatrics of KO, as you might imagine. But I think he is making a mistake focussing on “why” the potatoheads did what they did.
If prevention of future ocurrences is the goal, and I assert that it should be the goal, then worrying about “why” Dick Cheney did something is the wrong end of the elephant. The real issue is “how” did he do it, and “how” do we prevent that?
Once we look the other way for things like throwing out the Consitution’s requirement for declaration of war and a strong check on the executive, because we want security, the details of why these guys abuse the process really don’t matter that much, do they?
Cheney and Bush walked through a congressional roll-over with the full expectation that nothing would stand in their way, and they were right. Nothing did.
TR
Apparently someone is scrubbing Barton’s YouTube post of all comments. Must be a fun day to work in the congressman’s office.
El Cid
@TR: Yes, Barton was serious. No, he has no idea about “plates” or “plate tectonics” or “continental drift”. His Twitter feed reveals he really thought he had stuck one to Dr. Chu.
He thinks he’s powerfully making some combined point about how it must have been hotter if dinosaurs lived up where Alaska is, so this must mean all that global warming nonsense is a buncha malarkey, wachu gon’ say bout that, Mr. book-larnin Chinaman?
bvac
@HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker: If the “why” was so they could make a case to invade Iraq, wouldn’t that be worth pursuing? It opens the door to investigation a lot wider than the “how” – especially since “how” they did it involved the complicity of most democrats.
TR
Thanks for the link El Cid. I like this:
srv
God, there is such a simple solution to all this that would put these pukes on the defensive.
Yoo and Addington disappear tomorrow. The right goes ape with speculation. After a couple of weeks, the administration states that they are being held pursuant to “Unitary Executive Theory” outside of the US.
As it moves through the courts, the administration uses the Yoo/Bybee/Addington documents as the foundation for their case. Jose Padilla files an amicus curiae supporting the governments position.
This would be nonstop entertainment.
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@El Cid: His Twitter feed reveals he really thought he had stuck one to Dr. Chu.
This kind of thing is why I think Twitter won’t last too long as the Techno-Savior of the Conservative Brand™ or whatever. It enables impulsive posting of stupidity that has to be walked back (and can be screengrabbed and saved off by critics who have fast enough reflexes). Eventually they’ll get tired of chumpatizing themselves.
El Cid
@TR: On the Congressman’s YouTube clip, he says “Simple question stumps energy secretary”. A Wonkette wag says the accurate wording is “Simpleton question stumps energy secretary”.
Laura W Darling
@HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker: Well, it’s Wednesday so it’s not my night to speak for KO, thankfully. (But you know, his show just started and there are four more segments to go on this subject, I believe?)
But I’m gonna go on record while I’m here and say that Cheney won’t be with us much longer. Every time he inhales I think: “Death Rattle”. Days Are Numbered.
Is that akin to “pivoting on the Constitution”?
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
@bvac:
I don’t think so. There is always going to be a “why” when you hand the government an unchecked executive, and a dangerous world.
The Cheneys of the world know how to manipulate the why factor to get their way. That’s how they got the country to roll over and play dead for them. Only later did the foolhardiness of the why become clear.* But the how was a done deal … they had nothing checking their power. A few memos, some manipulated intel, some scary speeches … who was pushing back? I was a non believer, and I could hardly find any pushback.
*In fact, it became a joke. Bush laughed about it at a press dinner. Where ARE those darned WMDs, anyway? Under the sofa? HAHAHAHAHA.
Those guys were given a blank check. I don’t see the point in trying to punish them for spending all the money, if the goal is prevention. The next guys who get a blank check are also going to go on a spree.
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
Yes, but in 3/4 time.
And I hope you are right about Cheney. I think his funeral would be cathartic. For me.
Fencedude
@El Cid:
I think Chu probably went back to office after that, poured a glass of the inebrient of his choice, and sobbed quietly to himself.
valdivia
@El Cid:
sounds like Steele saying Greenland used to be green so ipso facto this means there is no global warning because greenland is white now!
El Cid
@Fencedude: I don’t think so — he kind of laughed right there, and I think he and his scientist friends went out and had a round of drinks laughing at Representative Dumbass.
bvac
@HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker: Right. I am challenging the premise that the goal was prevention. Getting a blank check to protect the country and spending it on a wholly unrelated war that in fact left us less secure is pretty potent for investigation. Not that I think Obama or anyone else would touch that with a mile long stick, though.
El Cid
@valdivia: I read one time on a map or somethin’ that somebody in Viking days somewhere or other in Greenland made somethin’ they called wine so I take it to mean that 600 years ago Greenland was growin’ fine wine just like France and this means global warming is all false and it finally proves that Al Gore is FAT and has a BIG HOUSE.
WereBear
I don’t understand some of these comments.
Your child is raped by a pedophile, but we let the pervert walk away because a trial would be too hard on the kid?
Bernie Madoff spent all the money, so it’s just water under the bridge?
Your grandma is beaten to death for the change from her purse, but we won’t pursue the thug because it’s Christmas?
Just go ahead and talk about all the good Dr. Mengele’s experiments ultimately did.
This all started with Nixon’s pardon. The Republicans want to put some junkie away for ten years for boosting a boombox, but when the President abuses the power of his office, it’s okay, we’ll just let the wounds heal.
Only they don’t. It’s the same guys popping up over and over again. These are all Nixon’s guys, getting worse and worse with each iteration.
Because they keep getting away with it.
What next? They’ve already destroyed an American city, gone to war on the flimsiest of pretexts, and brought the world to the brink of financial ruin.
Boys will be boys, huh?
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
True, and look at the Iraq Study Group. They sort of said that the whole thing was a cock-up, but the potatoheads just …. went about their business.
Well, I have things to do this evening, and I am sure that Brick Oven Bill needs to weigh in on this. Surely it can all be tied back to Railroad Electrification?
valdivia
@El Cid:
LOL. Don’t these types from up north drink something called Aquavit? I heard from a Swede once that Aquavit must travel on a ship for years before one can drink it.
Hyperion
@Laura W Darling: what was most impressive was the number of comments:5
Laura W Darling
@El Cid: mmmmmmmmmm….wine!
Corner Stone
@HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker:
Ummm, I thought I was making the case for equal justice under the law, no one above the law.
I think you’re wrong about what the people have asked for. It’s quite clear to me that we’ve been given a false choice for quite some time now. The powers that be have decided we can choose between a hard right militaristic hegemony and a slightly less right militaristic hegemony. We don’t have actual choice for someone who stands up and says, “Hey, we’re America! We don’t need to bomb the shit outta anybody to prove we’re the tops.”
I agree with what you’re saying but think you discount the severe corrosion that big money and big company play in the people’s false choice.
Hyperion
@HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker:
he played on the worst fears of the public.
fear-mongering: try to keep THAT from happening again.
bvac
@HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker: The Iraq Study Group was formed exactly so members of congress could nod their heads and say “no matter how we got into this mess, we have to look forward and figure out how to get out” which apparently means “stay there for 4 more years”
Hyperion
@Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist:
not if the past is any indication of the future.
Corner Stone
I wish Elizabeth De La Vega was a better public speaker. I think she has something important to say but she sucks on TV.
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
Oh, I totally agree with that. If I had to pick one factor in the path to the Bush Administration, it would be the moneyed interests and the corporations.
But I always come back to the basic idea that the people have the ultimate power. And when they weild it, the results can be … hideous, or impressive.
2004, hideous. 2008, inspiring. Etc.
Don’t blow my cover, but I’m an optimist at heart.
El Cid
@valdivia: These are weird people. Scientific tests based on ice cores and atmospheric physics and satellites in orbit measuring solar radiation coming in, feh, they don’t care, it’s not real; but let somebody tell them they heard about an old map that suggested that something (we don’t know what) was grown in certain microclimates of Greenland hundreds of years ago, and suddenly global warming’s a hoax. Weird, weird people.
El Cid
@Laura W Darling: See? We can’t let Al Gore take our wine away.
HitlerWorshippingPuppyKicker
@bvac:
All too true. I could never figure out if the whole thing was just a kabuki engineered by Baker to give Junior some cover.
Loyalty is a scary thing.
Laura W
@Hyperion: You will really love this one then, when the total number of readers was only two (Mom and Dad Cole) and “Balloon Juice” was still sopping wet from the christening waters (amniotic sac? Which goes best here?) – all glistening, shiny, new, and full of hopey changey promisey stuff.
1/06/02, I believe. Hard to tell from the post link.
Corner Stone
@srv: I like the wy you’re thinking here, and honestly I see no downside to snatchin’ their sorry ass.
However, I think you have to admit that you could put the two things on a huge screen, side by side, and ask a Repub for his/her comment. You know as well as I do that they could look at the one where brownies were tortured and say, “It kept us safe!”, and look at the one where we’re holding Rove/Yoo/etc and scream frothily, “Purely partisan! Policy of personal destruction!”
They could seamlessly switch back and forth with no dysfunction.
Hyperion
this thread titled WMD was right before the baby cat photo post from 2003 that Laura W (darling) linked to.
a blast from the past.
interestingly, i recognize none of the commenters.
but the level of republicanism is high!
Laura W
@Hyperion: If you’re gonna start archive diving, either take a buddy or be sure someone who cares about you knows where you’ve gone.
It’s not for the faint of heart. You can be in there for days, lose all sense of space/time orientation, and you’ll get really hungry and wish you’d not torn up all your bread to mark your trail in.
BRING LOTS OF GOOD WINE!
valdivia
@El Cid:
I feel your pain. I am a believer in science and the enlightenment so this weird crew gets no sympathy from me. Also–alcohol!
The Cat Who Would Be Tunch
I was just listening to the The World on the radio and caught the tail end of a segment about the recent release of the OLC memos. One aspect that I had completely was the fact that the investigations into torture by the previous could have serious impact in the geo-political sphere, since European intelligence agencies were also purportedly to be involved to various extents, from extradition to black sites. In other words, an investigation and prosecution initially focused on domestic officials (e.g. US) could potentially blow up to involve foreign intelligence officials that would have serious implications on US foreign relations.
Wow. Considering all that has occurred in the past eight years, I thought I couldn’t be surprised anymore by any of the inept behavior or consequences by the Bush administration. And yet, I continue to be surprised.
iluvsummr
I’d forgotten about this until I read that dkos Amnesty Int’l diary. What happened after the Italians and Germans tried to have CIA/US personnel arrested for torture? I don’t remember hearing much about it until now, so I’m assuming that even though 35 warrants were issued for both cases, no arrests were actually made.
Corner Stone
@Laura W: Major point on display in that other world:
Bwah-ha-ha-ha!!
Consistently wrong indeed.
tofubo
i’ve said it before, i’ll say it again
the entirety of the bush administration are such lying thieves, that if i asked any of them what time it was, i’d check the answer against three other sources and check to see if my wallet was still there
binzinerator
@Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon):
No. That is what the goopers and the asshole pundits and every other person who wants to pretend that responding to torture as if it is wrong is somehow partisan want people to believe, and they will make every effort to frame it that way.
The truth of it is it defines us as a people, it defines who we are when we say ‘us’ when we speak of ourselves as a nation. Not Obama’s presidency.
There is no avoiding this, this moment of truth. With what we now know, no matter what we do we will surely define our society, our nation, our core values, what we believe as people, citizens, Americans. We are the ones being defined here.
If a majority of us demand justice, we define ourselves as intolerant of tyranny, of war crimes, of barbaric abuses, and as capable of admitting we allowed a terrible mistake to happen and as willing to face up to whatever culpabililty we had as a society in what we approved of.
As as far as presidencies go, by doing so we will have defined the presidency of George W. Bush as a moral, legal, and political aberration of America.
If we admit we tortured, and we repudiate torture and investigate it and punish those who ordered it, we have an honest claim that we acted foolishly, rashly, intemperately and unwisely in the emotional hysteria that followed 9/11, and that we truly regret those actions now.
But if we do not, it speaks so much more of what we are and what we collectively believe than of anything Obama believes. And in that authoritarian society we have defined for ourselves Obama’s presidency will be considered the aberration.
AnneLaurie
I have to repeat: Kudos for working ‘swining’ into the same thread as The Turd Blossom’s porcine, sweaty jowls. But I seriously doubt the fReichtards blogging their manly manly big talk will ever go beyond “threatening” armed revolt, because they are sorry pus-sacs who go in fear that they’ll be challenged by a 90lb. grief-stricken mother (*cough*Cindy Sheehan*cough*). And their Dear Leaders, such as Karl Rove, will take one look at a night in jail — even a ‘country club’ jail, insofar as such a thing exists — and start singing like fat little grain-fed birds (we all know where little birdies get their grain). Give some ugly-arsed inglorious basterd like Patrick Fitzgerald or Eliot Spitzer an actual enforceable warrant, and watch Karl Rove confess to every large & small crime of his checkered career, back to the days when he was making his nickels selling access to the peephole into the seventh-grade girls’ locker room.
I’ve been saying it since I started commenting here: Truth first, THEN reconciliation. Because I don’t want to be explaining to the next generation, come 2032, why Supreme Court Justice Elisabeth Cheney has just ruled that Jenna Bush should be Dictator-for-the-Duration-of-the-War-Against-Eastasia.
mclaren
Since America is a banana republic, it’s perfectly appropriate that we start acting like one. Firing squads for the previous administration, followed by unmarked graves.
Elie
Hitlerpuppykicker way upthread:
“I am not one who subscribes to the idea that the country is doomed because it is capable of making mistakes. In fact, I think it has to make mistakes in order to go forward.”
I could not agree more…
Somehow we always want our policy to be “not us” or at least about an idealized “us” – but it is always about the dirty, greedy, fallen, us. Somewhere along the way, people begin to increase in their own humility about that and do less pontification from the place of human perfectionism — which does not exist.
We have to work at enlightenment and frequently, enlightenment comes without fireworks and big gold writing. It is leavened with acceptance and knowledge of limitations more than some grandiose, righteous explosion. We have to struggle to MAKE goodness in this life. It doesnt sit on a gold throne in a vault to be worshipped.
binzinerator
@Corner Stone:
What an obtuse person you are. You disagree then agree.
Of course this will define the next century, certainly the next several decades. What we have just lived through during the Bush years is the unraveling of many of the legal and customary underpinnings of this nation’s democracy.
Your ‘every connected asshole has done this, what’s the diff?’ act sounds sophisticated and world-wise only among the undergrads and the home-schooled.
Nobody in a modern democracy — apart from a funny little painter man from Austria — has done what the Bushies have done. Nobody in this democracy has ever done what the Bushies have done. Which is undermine some of the deepest embedded underpinnings of this democracy. And do it while multiple laws and international treaties exist on the books against it (as opposed to what was extant, say, during the Trail of Tears) AND do it with a modern press corp backed by journalists who had been shown the way by people like IF Stone, Murrow, Woodward and Bernstein.
The answer lies partly in how Woodward was co-opted by the White House to perform hagiography. It was a symptom, not the disease.
It’s a singularity and you seemed to have missed the uniqueness of the Bush years. They are quite unlike anything else, affecting things quite unlike anything else, in scope political, economical, geophysical, legal, moral and spiritual.
And how we as a nation respond to one of the most outstanding abuses, legally and morally, of these years is….nothing special, eh? Just same old same old. For you it may be.
But OK. Here’s a proposal: let’s say this is in fact nothing much more than we’d seen before as a nation. Fine. But I ask you this, don’t you think the campaign of genocide of Native Americans said something about who we were as a people? Don’t you think the Trail of Tears had some bearing on ‘we’ as a nation for a long time after? Don’t you think it has any bearing on what we are as a people now? They surely do, in the same way slavery and Andersonville morally defined the Confederacy.
Please explain why you think this issue of government torture as official policy, nay, official secret policy — we are living in a 21st century democracy, IIRC — is somehow business as usual.
Incredible. You state won’t have any effect on the course of the country?
Why do you think the course of the country would not have deviated one iota when torture
becomes an acceptable way for the authorities to get information from people? Where in that not-too-distant future, as Phillip Zelikow explained, “Americans in any town of this country could constitutionally be hung from the ceiling naked, sleep deprived, water-boarded, and all the rest — if the alleged national security justification was compelling.”
Dumb fuck, that is the import of what I am talking about. And it isn’t some academic exercise. It is real, it is here now and it is being debated, even championed, even if those defending it don’t realize the ramifications of what they are arguing for. And to think that what Bush did and what we are faced with as a result is just some of the “same ol’ same ‘ol” is dumb fuckery or trolling or both. Sheesh.
Elie
Valdivia and El Cid —
I believe these people must assert their altered states and these altered states reflect an internal personal environment so diminished as to be both frightening and immensely sad.
Something really bad happened to a lot of people in this country. I donot think however that it is irreversible. I feel its like being taken over by a sect — they have to be slowly de programmed and taught how to stand up and think independently again.
I think their fears started it, but once they got the alternate reality going — it was too hard and they didnt have a path for changing it.
I think Obama is on the right track. He is gentle, patient and mostly non judgemental — he projects that and those who are intact enough see it and are calmed.
It will be good work to get these people back — those who we can bring back, that is…
asiangrrlMN
After Nixon, we let it go and relied on choosing better politicians or something. The economic crisis we’re in is partly because of dereg or not enforcing regulation as it stands. It’s in the government’s nature not to hold its own to the law. We cannot look forward if we don’t look at what we’ve done wrong in the past.
I agree with Were Bear on this. It really sends the wrong message if we let those who got away with crimes just walk away unscathed. I would prosecute Bybee, Yoo, and the rest of that bunch of lawyers for starters. Anyone connected with writing the memos or issuing the directives, including Cheney. At the very least, waterboarding is considered torture in international law. We waterboarded. Therefore, we tortured.
I would like to reiterate that I don’t care if it’s done right now. I am for a Truth Commission if it were actually about finding the truth. I am in no rush to prosecute. However, I don’t believe we can put any laws into place that will deter future criminals of the Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rove lineage if we don’t demonstrate that breaking those laws has consequences.
Do it slowly. Take twenty years. Do it meticulously. Do it the right way. Just do it.
Comrade Darkness
@eastriver,
Killing prisoners was Bush’s proud accomplishment before he became president. Ken Lay of Enron paid Bush’s way into office not once, but twice.
That we are discussing gross mistreatment of prisoners and the economic rape of the country at this juncture should not be a surprise to anyone.
TenguPhule
Good, they can die with them.
TenguPhule
Fixed.
Because the truth will not come out until the ringleaders have their heads chopped off and mounted on poles in the public square, where their minions can see and start blabbing the whole truth lest they join them.
TenguPhule
The right way is rarely the easiest one.
Corner Stone
@binzinerator:
Where to start with the absolute dumbfuckery that you are? Hmmm. Let’s see.
“Nobody in this democracy has ever done what the Bushies have done.”
Try taking a look at Nixon, Reagan, then Bush I for a teeny tiny little glimpse into Presidents who fucked over our Rule of Law for their own purposes, political and otherwise.
“It’s a singularity and you seemed to have missed the uniqueness of the Bush years. They are quite unlike anything else, affecting things quite unlike anything else, in scope political, economical, geophysical, legal, moral and spiritual.”
This just sounds like you’re trying really, really hard but you’re just wrong. The whole point to my previous post was that people in power will continue to do the things they do. Write history as they care to and fuck the rest of us. You just sound like a clueless jackass here. “Trail of Tears”? WTF? Stupid.
“Dumb fuck, that is the import of what I am talking about. And it isn’t some academic exercise. It is real, it is here now and it is being debated, even championed, even if those defending it don’t realize the ramifications of what they are arguing for. And to think that what Bush did and what we are faced with as a result is just some of the “same ol’ same ‘ol” is dumb fuckery or trolling or both. Sheesh.”
God but you have zero comprehension skills. Any sentient being (clearly not you) would’ve understood that I’m calling for prosecutions clearly BECAUSE I don’t want my country to slip into some kind of torture-zone you quote by Zelikow.
You know what? Fuck you. You are clearly an ignorant piece of shit trying to masquerade up your comments here. Woodward was co-opted? Really? You mean he wasn’t clearly a starfucker at this point?
There’s nothing unique about the Bush years. There’s no “singularity” here. They did what all powerful authoritatrians did. Abuse their power and station to complete their goals. It’s happened many times in our nations history. My argument was that if we don’t force a conclusion this time it’s destined to return worse than before. But an ignorant donkey fucking room temperature IQ such as yourself clearly couldn’t grasp that.
What a brutal waste of space you are.
binzinerator
@Dennis-SGMM:
I missed this comment. Very true. In this way we have crossed the Rubicon to torture. What ever we as a nation decide, the result will be far-reaching. I knew that when I first learned about Abu Ghraib. You cannot open Pandora’s Box and then pretend it wasn’t.
cokane
I thought Rove’s addition of “that may be what they do in Chicago” was very insightful.
Does he think people like Blagojevich should not have been investigated? Wasn’t justice served in Chicago?
binzinerator
@Corner Stone:
Nixon had a program of torture? Reagan did? And Bush Sr.? They had a network of secret prisons? They all had imprisoned and tortured hundreds of people for years without charges or due process? They all subverted Geneva conventions, the DOJ and large parts of the governent while controlling house and senate while their party in lockstep had their back?
And even Reagan and Bush the Elder didn’t wiretap without cause and a warrant. (Nixon did but FISA was enacted exactly because of Nixon’s abuses. But Nixon never eavesdropped so widely and so indiscriminately.). So all these guys eavesdropped on millions of Americans without a warrant just like Bush Jr.? Really?
I didn’t even bother to read the rest of your bullshit. You might have had some semi-reasonable point in there but more likely you just screamed ‘fuck you’ while agreeing with me.
You are the most useless of the commenters here that I’ve ever read. Bar none including trolls. At least the trolls are amusing.
The only thing I find more pissant as someone who’s as half-assed principled as you have shown yourself to be is someone who is half-assed principled AND who doesn’t understand what he just said.
Corner Stone
@binzinerator:
And as a further FUCK YOU.
hat tip A Tiny Revolution:
Nothing new under the sun
You clueless fucking hump.
Corner Stone
@binzinerator: Oh noes!! It’s binzinerator! “Master of All Things 100% Literal ™”
I’d like to continue making fun of your consistent ability to be wrong but it’s clear you suffer from a mental defect – “The InAbility to Recognize a Layered Argument”.
Poor thing.
Yep. Long and wrong. I’m very sorry for you that you lack basic comprehension skills. You agree with a comment by Dennis-SGMM at 229 yet it said almost exactly what I said @ comment 165. I apologize deeply to you for not speaking..more..slowly..so you can follow the discourse.
Or are you making some kind of Argument By Authority now? You were here first so it’s clear your failed logic has primacy?
Corner Stone
Although I do have to say, “the most useless”. Now, that’s pretty fucking strong. Thank you.
Corner Stone
@binzinerator: I just made you my companion @ 232. It’s ok if you never have the guts to comment here again. We’ll understand.
Of course, if you choose to be the latter day Brick Oven Bill, well, I’m sure you’ll be very successfull at that as well…although he’s more intellectually consistent than you appear capable of being. I’m sure it’ll all work out in the end.
mr p
perhaps it’s time america joined the icc. neutralizes the partisanship issue it does imho
jeff
Can’t wait to vote Arlen out.