I wondered if you were a pitcher or a catcher. Looks like now we know.

Gotcha. I assume that you spend a lot of time up on the roof with Arturo, watching for Alien Space Invasions? Or are you down in the basement, guarding against unicorn infestations.

The fact is, torture doesn't work, America has always, since the days of the revolution been against it, and those that are being apologists for it don't have an argument. Obviously.

They're just Bush sychophants that don't put America first.

[shrug]

Tell me beasty, if it was your KID accused of terrorism, would you be "OK" with torture?

Seems to me you guys like to ask the "what if" questions here, so, what if it was your kid getting waterboarded. Pity he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but oh well?

Valdron is the LAST person to put America first.

I'd rather have him waterboarded than beheaded. Something you and Vadron don't spend any time at all criticizing.

Who's arguing? We're just picking on idiot boy.

I guess hot tar and feathers was a sign of respect back then.

A fence rail was considered public transportation.

Is America beheading people now?

Guess it won't be long with your "tit for tat" mentality.

VALUES DO MATTER.

Nice ducking of the question, btw. At least I answered it.

It's obviously beyond you righties to be honest.

If you have your way America will stand for NOTHING.

Heck of a job.

If we were you'd be all over it. Muslim terrorists do it and you're busy criticizing us. There's a message in there somewhere.

Well obviously, you haven't been reading the 'Beheading' thread, you big floppy poof.

ROTFL. Good try, points awarded anyway.

Well, the message is that Muslim terrorists are bad and should not be imitated. Muslim terrorists behead people, that's bad, we shouldn't do it, and we don't. Muslim terrorists torture people, you seem to think that's such a peachy keen idea that you want to try it.

Here's a clue. Stop kissing Osama Bin Laden's butt. He's a crazy tall guy in the mountains of Waziristan. He's not a role model for anybody. Particularly, he's not role model for America.

And Beasty is the FIRST person to put America last.

Oh yeah, and your mother chews tobacco.

Yes, yes it is.



Nope. One billion is equal to one thousand millions.

So if you tortured one out of a million of one billion people, you would torture one thousand, not one million.

Don't feel bad, a lot of people confuse trillions (a million millions) with billions.

ROTFL! You got me! Good on you.

That's what I don't get, we're at "war" with Muslim terrorists, because... they are bad, bad, people. So these RW clowns think we should emulate what it is that maks them bad?

It's nonsensical.

Bush has led this Country in a giant leap backwards, not just by a few decades, but by 100s of years.

Heck of a job.

The hunin legacy...casting a poor shadow.

Should I stop sending my montly payments to the local water board?

Yes, and that would lead one to wonder why your sunny disposition and pissing and moaning cant counter balance Hunin, who is only one man.

You've always had the chance to post michele malkin "happy ending" fairy tales but all you want to do is bitch.

If you want the United States to torture vote Republican.

“Do Unto Others…”

By Jim Marcinkowski on November 5, 2007 at 9:15 PM in Current Affairs

By Jim Marcinkowski

The debate about whether “waterboarding” constitutes torture misses the point.

Imagine for a moment that you are the chief law enforcement officer investigating the kidnapping of an infant. You have a suspect in custody who is believed to be the only person who knows where the child is being kept. Without food and water, it will be just a matter of time before the child dies. Should you be allowed to break out the waterboard?

Or how about a meth lab operator who is cooking his product in an unknown location in a residential neighborhood, where the chances of it exploding and killing a good number of innocents is extreme? Waterboard?

What about the conspirators to the exposure of an undercover agent, where there is a strong probability that the exposure will result in the death of those assisting our government? Should a full investigation include the use of waterboarding?

What compels an affirmative answer? Is it the certainty of innocent death, or the number of deaths? What should the number be? One, ten, or perhaps one thousand? If ten thousand sounds about right, and it can be shown to work, why not use it when one hundred victims are at risk? Why not use it to save one innocent, helpless infant?

The point is, if you believe waterboarding is an acceptable practice, say so. Let’s do it! Let’s encourage the Congress of the United States to pass a crime bill to train our law enforcement officers in these “enhanced” interrogation techniques. After all, we could probably save thousands of lives in just a few years.

Now I know that there is a segment of the population that would probably welcome such a move. But for those with functioning brains and hearts, ask yourself why it sickens you to even think of adopting such techniques as standard law enforcement procedures. Is it because they may be applicable to you?

Or would it be okay as long as it was only used on foreigners? George Bernard Shaw once wrote, “The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.”

As Americans, we do not sacrifice our humanity for the expedient, nor do we believe that true justice can be achieved without the temperament of legal and moral process. Honor does not derive from winning at all costs, but in winning (or at times, even losing) without shame. While America has on countless occasions sacrificed its blood for honor around the world, we have never sacrificed our honor out of fear of losing more blood.

This week the Senate will vote on whether to confirm Judge Michael Mukasey as Attorney General. The vote will not only determine whether a vacancy in that office is filled, it will be a statement of what the United States stands for around the world.

So far Judge Mukasey has declined to state his position on whether he believes waterboarding is torture and therefore illegal. He claims not to have received a “secret” White House briefing on the matter. Yet the judge is an intelligent, accomplished man. How could he have misconstrued what is clearly a question of principle requiring a very simple answer? If the White House dangled a “secret” briefing on the use of rubber batons to beat confessions out of prisoners, would he be similarly indecisive?

From the time of its founding, this country has been described as a “shining city on a hill,” a beacon and an example of not only freedom and democracy, but of an unwavering moral commitment to what is good, what is human and what is right. As the Senate decides on this confirmation, they should keep in mind the words of U.S. Justice Robert Jackson in his opening statement at the Nuremberg trials: “The real complaining party at your bar is Civilization.”

Call the vote.


http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2007/11/05/do-unto-others/

A Third Secret Torture Memo?

06 Nov 2007 08:19 pm

The ACLU discovers another piece of withheld evidence of possible war crimes by members of the Bush-Cheney administration. We don't know what's in it yet, and a judge will begin adjudicating whether we will be able to find out one day. The memo was penned by Steven Bradbury. Money quote from Spencer Ackerman:

Of course, the sudden appearance of the 2005 Bradbury-supervised OLC memos raises the possibility that the administration is still hiding other torture memos. "We've always had that suspicion," ACLU attorney Jameel Jaffer says, explaining that the ACLU knows of "dozens" of torture documents yet to be released to the ACLU FOIA. Those, he says, include photos of prisoners "not from Abu Ghraib" subjected to brutal interrogations, as well as documents relevant to the CIA inspector-general inquiry into prisoner abuse by the CIA at Iraq and Afghanistan. (That inquiry was one of several that led General Mike Hayden, director of the CIA, to open an inquiry on the inspector general.)

So is the government acting in good faith? "I don't know. I just don't know," Jaffer says.

Cheney? Oh yes, we do. Oh yes, we do.

http://dailydish.typepad.com/


This Andrew Sullivan guy sure has turned against his party in a big way. Even refers to them as war criminals. That's pretty bad considering what he said to support the war at the beginning.

Though clearly uncomfortable, waterboarding loosens lips without causing permanent physical injuries (and unlikely even temporary ones). If terrorists suffer long-term nightmares about waterboarding, better that than more Americans crying themselves to sleep after their loved ones have been shredded by bombs or baked in skyscrapers.

In short, there is nothing “repugnant” about waterboarding.

— Deroy Murdock is a columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZjNkY...WUwMjdjZjU2ZjA=


Another Republican torture apologist. Jeez, how low can our country possibly go? Read the rest of his shi t. It's as bad as this little snippet.

That guy has gone down the slippery slope on skis.

http://opinionjournal.com/columnists/bstephens/?id=110010827

In a recent article in Commentary, essayist Algis Valiunas recounts that when war broke out in Europe in 1939, Franklin Roosevelt "issued a plea that all combatant nations do the decent thing and refrain from bombing." And yet, he continues, "President Roosevelt's high-mindedness did not count for much once the action was under way." The Nazis, for whom terror from the skies was no more anathema than every other form of terror they practiced, were the first to bomb civilian targets, beginning with Warsaw and moving on to Rotterdam and London.

Within a couple of years, the Allies were retaliating in kind, which in current parlance would be known as "lowering oneself to the level of one's enemies." At the Casablanca conference in January 1943, Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill promised to undertake "the heaviest possible bomber offensive against the German war effort." Six months later that terrible promise was fulfilled over Hamburg by 700 British bombers. In Mr. Valiunas's telling, it was a scene from the Inferno: "Oxygen starvation and carbon monoxide poisoning killed many; bomb shelters turned into ovens and roasted the persons inside, so that rescue workers days later found the bodies seared together in an indistinguishable mass; the molten asphalt of the streets engulfed those who fled the burning buildings."

An estimated 45,000 people died this way in Hamburg. U.S. and British air forces would repeat the procedure over Dresden, Tokyo, Yokohama, Hiroshima, Nagasaki--cities of real or at least arguable military significance. Hundreds of smaller cities and towns of doubtful strategic value were also reduced to ash and rubble, bringing the total civilian death toll to about 600,000 Germans (including 75,000 children under 14) and a roughly equal number of Japanese. How can this be justified? Does it not greatly diminish Allied claims to moral superiority?

Most people would argue that it does not, even though the horror of what was done to Hamburg and the other cities dwarfs in moral scale the worst U.S. abuses in the war on terror (real or alleged), which are so frequently cited as evidence that we have debased ourselves beyond recognition. Most people would also agree that the only compelling ethical defense that can be made for the bombing campaign is that it hastened Allied victory, spared at least as many lives (on both sides) as it cost, and created the conditions for a more peaceful postwar world. In other words, the question here isn't about the intrinsic morality of the bombing. It's about whether the good that flowed from the bombing outweighed the unmistakable evil of the act itself.

Among historians, there is a lively debate about whether that result was achieved. In the cases of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the evidence that the bombings ended the war and saved as many as a million Allied and Japanese lives is overwhelming. A somewhat better argument can be made that the bombing of Germany failed to justify its price in human suffering, particularly the bombing of non-strategic targets. Yet as historian Richard Overy has noted, "There has always seemed something fundamentally implausible about the contention of bombing's critics that dropping almost 2.5 million tons of bombs on tautly stretched industrial systems and war-weary urban populations would not seriously weaken them."

Whatever side one takes here, the important point is that the debate fundamentally is about results. Note the difference with the current debate over waterboarding, where opponents argue that the technique is unconscionable and inadmissible under any circumstances, even in hypothetical cases where the alternative to waterboarding is terrorist attacks resulting in mass casualties among innocent civilians. According to this view, it is possible to wage war yet avoid the classic "choice of evils" dilemmas that confronted past statesmen such as Churchill and Roosevelt. Or, to put the argument more precisely, it is possible to avoid this choice if one is also prepared to pay for it in blood--if not in one's own, than in that of kith and kin and whoever else's life must be sacrificed to keep our consciences clear.

Paul Tibbets, too, had a clear conscience. "Why be bashful?" he told the Columbus Dispatch in 2003. "That's what it took to end the war." Tibbets needed no instruction in the cruelties of war. But he also understood that awful things would have to be done in order to be spared greater harms. One senses Judge Mukasey understands that too--further evidence of his fitness to serve as attorney general.

Mr. Stephens is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board. His column appears in the Journal Tuesdays.

More US torture.........................


Fraggin booosh and cheney personally involved here..........

Jailed Terrorist: "I Want My Walkman"
Convicted al-Qaeda murderer complains about life in federal prison
NOVEMBER 6--An al-Qaeda operative serving life in prison for his role in the bombing of American embassies in Africa contends that his rights are being violated by U.S. jailers who have denied him access to Arabic publications and religious books, limited his mail privileges, and no longer allow him to use a Walkman. Mohamed Al-Owhali, 32, claims that his incarceration at the "supermax" federal prison in Florence, Colorado has left him so severely depressed that he stopped eating for months, forcing Bureau of Prisons officials to feed him via a tube placed through his nose. In a new U.S. District Court lawsuit, Al-Owhali wants a judge to order prison brass to provide him with expedited mail services, expanded phone privileges, and access to radio and TV news broadcasts and English and Arabic newspapers and magazines. Currently, Al-Owhali claims, he is only provided with month-old copies of USA Today, "with several pages-sections removed." The convicted terrorist is held in virtual isolation in a special security unit at Florence, per Department of Justice guidelines known as Special Administrative Measures. Attached to Al-Owhali's handwritten October 19 lawsuit is a copy of an internal BoP complaint form filed by the inmate (a copy of which you'll find below) and a BoP memo to Al-Owhali detailing the SAM measures governing his incarceration. The Osama bin Laden disciple and three codefendants were convicted in 2001 for their roles in simultaneous car bomb attacks at U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Tanzania. Those blasts killed a total of 224 people and injured thousands of other victims.


this guy standing up to the evil US should make Davis proud.

You should consider suicide. It's the right thing to do.

And then Nomarchy showed up.............

Need help? Try a tall building. Or better yet, any cliffs nearby? That way his worthless carcass doesn't take any innocents out.

Although I don't like Quimby, I mean Kennedy, he had a point about enforcing laws.

How Low Can We Go?

Highlights of yesterday's Senate Judiciary Committee vote on AG nominee Michael Mukasey, from the Post:

Schumer and Feinstein said they took solace in Mukasey's assurances that he would enforce any future waterboarding ban passed by Congress. That argument prompted a robust retort from Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

"He will, in fact, enforce the laws that we pass in the future? Can our standards have really sunk so low?" Kennedy said. "Enforcing the law is the job of the attorney general. It's a prerequisite, not a virtue." . . .

One of the most emotional moments yesterday came from Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), a military lawyer who supported Mukasey but criticized his answers on waterboarding. Graham, who has frequently clashed with the Bush administration on interrogation and detention policies, said Mukasey is "a good man of the law" but also urged Congress to pass legislation specifically outlawing the use of waterboarding by all government entities, including the CIA.

"The world is not short of people and countries who will waterboard you. There's not a shortage of people who will cut your heads off in the name of religion," Graham said. "There is a shortage of people who believe in justice, not vengeance."

Graham's speech prompted Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and then Kennedy to leave their chairs and walk over to thank him, despite his support for Mukasey's nomination.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

Brought to you by Nancy Pelosi and the San Francisco Morals and Values Team.

Who needs compassionate conservativism when you can have the warmth of liberals like this?

we will always ASSociate that picture with you, JT

McCain's Honor

07 Nov 2007 02:11 pm

An encouraging moment:

McCain's comments, especially on torture, seemed to resonate with military vets and current National Guard members who attended campaign events during the day.

The Arizona senator specifically criticized fellow GOP presidential candidates Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson for their lack of military experience and failure to denounce the interrogation technique of waterboarding as torture.

McCain also said that members of the Bush administration should be held responsible as war criminals if waterboarding or other banned activities continued after Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act, signed into law in 2005, and the Military Commissions Act, which was signed by President Bush in 2006.

"After we passed the Detainee Treatment Act, the Military Commissions Act then obviously anybody who violated any law of the United States would have to be held responsible," he said.

http://dailydish.typepad.com/


Well John, that's what the signing statement was for. You didn't know that? By the way, wasn't waterborading illegal BEFORE 2005?

Robertson and Giuliani: The Torture Link

07 Nov 2007 03:52 pm

There's a connection between their constituencies, I think. A reader writes:

I was happy to read the article on the Evangelical Outpost condemning the practice of torture. But I was disturbed at many of the comments below the original post. Not silence on the topic of torture, but enthusiastic support of torture. Some even arguing that the government has a mandate to torture in order to keep us safe:

And this one, going so far as to argue that the bible justifies torture:

Another Biblical defense of torture here. Who would Jesus torture indeed? This is the true voice of the Republican base right now:

This is instructive because it shows the real motive behind the technique: not to get actionable intelligence, since we know that the evidence procured by torture is always riddled with inaccuracy and untruth - but to exact revenge and to get false confessions for political purposes. And indeed the president has used such confessions for political purposes. And we have no way of knowing if the evidence he cites fully supports the claims he makes. Yes, I'll admit it: I do not believe this president when he tells me he has solid intelligence for something. Fool me once ...

These things start as a joke. But we have learned they are not a joke at all. Christianism - as opposed to Christianity - is quite comfortable with torture, as long as it is wielded by a Master to protect his Servants, and as long as it is used for revenge against what Robertson calls Islamic "bloodlust." When you fuse Christianity with power, it isn't long before Christians start imposing the cross on others rather than taking it up for themselves. God is on their side, remember? And so they can do no wrong. You're either with them or against them, for torture or against America. Get it?

http://dailydish.typepad.com/

Yep. They ain't Christian

"Christianism" is as good a term as any.

Sullivan has been using it for quite some time. He may have coined it.

War Pornography



Gory Iraq War Photos



One should not presume the people depicted are combatants.



FBI Hoped to Follow Falafel Trail to Iranian Terrorists Here



This process would have involved vegans, ethnic food lovers, foreign students, health food aficionados, followers of low fat or low carb diets, people who shop at Whole Foods or Trader Joes, those who buy in bulk at Costco, and even those with Bill O'Reilly sexual peccadilloes with the terrorist watch list.



C&R video: McCain blasts Giuliani over Waterboarding comments




Poll results: Waterboarding is torture



40% is a lot of torture enablers.



ACLU Learns of Third Secret Torture Memo by Gonzales Justice Department

May I suggest that you edit the above post to get rid of the pornographic gore pics, and provide a link for those who wish to go there instead?

I didn't consider them porn since there was no sexual content, but in deference to those sensitive to violent images I've removed the images posted by our soldiers. I must say though, that I would hope that people view the images in order to viscerally understand the realities of this war. Hiding from the realities of this war only perpetuates its continuation, IMHO. There is no sexual content in any of the images. Our soldiers traded the images for access to sexual content on the web.