No, torture has the biggest proof of wrong doing. More coming.

Yeah the torture thing is touchy. It happened for sure and is totally fucked up. Weather it came from the top, we may never know.

The hard core toture I mean. The "light" toture... if there is such a thing is debatable I guess? Police stations use many types of "light" when doing questioning. So I can't really make a stron decision on this topic. WWII-style torure, some of the stuff done right after 911 and techniques used in many countries in the world today... fucked up. Contridicts everything we stand for.

And yet, curiously, we had people already trained in its use.

Short clip of Glenn Loury and Joshua Coen discussing why the torture issue will not be something easily swept under the rug.

Glen Greenwald on Obama's suspension of legal proceedings at Guantanmo:

I just can't see myself as a crazy left-winger for thinking this is a serious matter to investigate and understand.

Meant to include this from Glenn Greenwald as well.

By the way, I forgot to mention how hilarious some people in this thread are for sounding incredulous about prosecuting based hindsight. Based on that ridiculous notion, a whole fuckton of people should be released from jail.

I feel certain that Mr. Jawal would rather see the Obama Administration concentrate on giving him justice rather than on prosecuting members of the previous Administration. As of today, all they have done concretely is request that his Habeus proceeding be delayed for at least 4 more months.

While prosecuting the guilty is important, justice is more important to me.

/point Reagan. Curiously, indeed =p

Actually, I'd say it was more the fact that Bush allowed the widespread use of it, not that we weren't prepared to use it. That's not to say I condone that we should be training people to torture, but training people to do an act is far different from actually executing the act in full force.

Justice is an interesting beast in that if you allow people to get away with a horrific act, it sends a strong signal that if you have enough power many people will see it as an open door to do the same things.

It will not be served until you complete both of those tasks. Half-measures and justice do not belong in the same sentence.

For Mr. Jawal, personally, justice is being allowed to have his habeus proceeding and thus being freed (unless there is more we don't know). A large component of justice for victims is punishment of the guilty but a larger part is insuring that no one else will be victimized by the guilty. Well, our political system assures that Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/etc will no longer have the power to victimize future Mr. Jawals.

True justice and true morality would have been impeaching the guilty when their crimes were exposed or at the latest when the opposition party finally gained the power to do so in order to prevent further crimes. But Pelosi stopped that, didn't she? I don't believe that any investigations done by the House at this late date are done for any higher calling to justice but purely motivated by revenge. In my opinion revenge is not a good reason to expend tax dollars and Administration energy on a witch hunt. If Mr. Jawal or others want to pursue Bush/Cheney/etc in an International War Crimes Court, I applaud them and wish them well and would encourage our government to cooperate with that endeavor as much as they can.

I'd refer to my examples of people who did not get true justice until years after the fact because of cowardice or whatever other reasons.

Both components are important. I'm not sure if they're EQUALLY important, but if you really want to see actual justice served, both of them need to be met.

And it may very well be motivated by revenge, but that doesn't mean it's any less worthwhile to pursue. It's a bit shallow to suggest that because it might only be because of cowardice and revenge that we seek the justice, we ought not do it. If that were justified somehow, then we should contact the Justice Department right now and tell them that need to start categorically hearing only cases where the accuser doesn't seek revenge or wasn't cowardly at any part of the event.

Negative. That is not how blind justice should or can work.



And how does it assure that this same thing will not happen again, but by different people?

For me at least, it's not so much about punishment of the guilty, but about the message of deterrence and the general message it sends when we decide to allow people to get away with something because they had a certain amount of power, or enough time has passed - or, just because the people who could have gotten something done of the time in which the act took place(Pelosi, etc) decided to not act.

By that logic Kula, can we safely assume you are against new prosecutions of the people who committed crimes against colored people back in the 50's and 60's merely because the police departments of that era were racist and decided not to pursue justice then?

[quote="SurcamStancesBy the way, I forgot to mention how hilarious some people in this thread are for sounding incredulous about prosecuting based hindsight. Based on that ridiculous notion, a whole fuckton of people should be released from jail.[/quote]

Read my explanation. Hindsight on intelligence. I still think the "Bush lied" is total BS. Was it a lie prior to hindsight? Nope. Did he continue to say Iraq had WMDs? Nope.

Unless Reagan was president in the 50's it wasn't him either. I'm curious as to why one would think that. Anyway, Dave Emory had some pretty scathing things to say about it during one of his radio segments. Particularly regarding the investigations surrounding the first World Trade Center bombing.

Intelligence that was *fabricated*.

_________________

All of which was top secret intelligence, but is spun with words like "in the dark" and "behind closed dors". Knowing which intelligence to believe would require hindsight. The same situation occurred with 911 intelligence. We had some alerting of an impending attack and analysis saying it wasn't reliable. But who took the blunt of that? It was spun the Bush's administration dropped the ball... lose lose situation unless you have a time machine imo.

The latest Washington Post-ABC News poll says I'm wrong. I'm getting it via Greenwald:

A split that's three points or less is not a majority. The statistical error of most polls hovers around that much. But otherwise it seems pretty accurate. The country is basically divided in half over it.

I'm firmly in the camp that we should investigate things that happened in the Bush administration and hold people accountable as necessary.

However, I'm also concerned that there are more important things to be done right now. Our impetus needs to be getting America's economy back on track and if investigations are going to cause a hyper-partisan divide in Congress, preventing us from focusing on here and now, we should wait.

I got an idea, and it may be crazy, but how about we make what I like to call "teams." We can have different people working on different things! Fucking madness!

Whistleblower #1: Former NSA analyst Russel Tice

Well, I mention his name because he oversaw one of the bigger militaristic expansions in recent times.

My point was more that it wasn't just one President that decided to keep spies trained for that kind of thing. Reagan or any other President is just as responsible as the next. My point with Bush was that he willingly employed them and utilized those techniques to a level not seen in recent history. Of course they remained trained, and not just by Democratic presidents.

If you are being taught how to withstand torture you are also inadvertently being taught how to torture. Unless you really think they have some program that includes a 6 week course on "how to torture" with live prisoners? Or are you saying that we should stop instructing our personnel on how to withstand torture because of unintended consequences? I would need to see clear, unambiguous proof/testimony that we are actually preparing people to torture our enemies to believe that we have sunk that low.

Look up the Church Committee and the Rockefeller Commission for starters. Not only was it done, it was done on US citizens who did not volunteer.

Sarissa, I looked up both (granted only on Wiki) and found nothing. Could you point out a good place to look?

Let me google Church Committee for you

Rockefeller Commission

Been waiting to use that.

Very nice, Surcam; I like!

Unfortunately again a cursory look at what popped up was about how one led to FISA and the other to the banning of assassinations by CIA, neither of which has anything to do with torture.

The library is your best bet. It's too old to find much on the internet. It *might* be on findlaw.

The gist of it was that they experimented with sensory deprivation, mind-altering drugs, and interrogation techniques on prisoners, soldiers, and even students who volunteered for psychological studies at universities. The program that is probably the most familiar in popular culture was called MK ULTRA. At least one death resulted from it, but it's likely there were several.

I am having a ball. Venen is particularly amusing. He claims to be this brilliant political thinking, he's calling for people to be prosecuted, and: HE DOES NOT KNOW WHY.

Tarot didn't cite any cases. She rambled off several questionable activities of the Bush administration. THAT DOES NOT MAKE THEM CRIMINAL. And sorry, I am not going to spend time researching why people are a discussion board are right. If these supposed "thinkers" had such a great case, they could say what it is.

Hell, at least when the idiot Republicans were going after Clinton, they actually had a LAW that he had broken.

You don't have to quote me the specific line item statute, but this thread has been percolating for a week or two and despite the fact people think Bush is as guilty as heck, NOBODY seems to be able to say:

Bush is guilty of X.

I mean, if any of you actually knew what you were writing about, I would think you could come up with SOMETIHNG. I think what people are failing to understand is that there is a difference between having bad (even repulsive) policies and breaking the law.

I am tempted to write up one of the supposed "crimes" the adminsitration committed and discuss why it probably isn't criminal, but I don't want to help the people puking all over themselves come up with a topic.

I get it, the whole concept of "the law" is complicated and gets in the way of your people "having justice", but it is what it is.

This is why your whole camp is pathetic. You can't come up with a LAW, so you attack me. Keep writing though, it's fun seeing how paper thin your position is.

Why do I proof read after submitting? Just assume that post isn't full of typos, heh.

I haven't followed this discussion all that closely, but I was under the impression that illegal wiretapping was against the law. Also torture, and detaining prisoners without basic human rights. I'd be interested to know if I'm wrong in that belief.

Also, what laws? US law? International laws? Hell, even if he didn't break a law, I'm OK with that administration being investigated for most any of the "questionable activities" listed in this thread. Call me callous, but they're in politics. They should have known what they were signing up for when they got the gig.

Yea I'm not sure how many more laws we're going to need to cite here.

I can honestly say I'll feel the same way when Obama leaves office - If there is ANY questionable activity on the part of his administration, it should be investigated. I don't care who it is, or what office they happen to be holding or held - if there's potential criminal activity, it should be investigated and if it turns out something was done, prosecuted.

Wanted for questioning...

get back to the bored room chuckles

_________________

don't be an ass for no reason, Skycrasher err... I mean Draagun :p

How about quoting ONE? This is why you're laughable. I know of two specifically that are in question, but it amazes me that nobody here calling for his head can identify them.

Orme, I don't think any of us have any idea what the fuck you want. Not more than three posts ago, three laws were given. Tarot gave you like 10, with the addition of "just fucking google it (my words)."

So again- what the fuck do you want?

Legit quesitons. The fundamental question is: are these activities illegal?

I know it seems like semantics, but it isn't. Example: I am driving 70 in a 55 and get pulled over. I go to court to fight it. My challenge is that there is a specific law saying "speed limit is 55". I would argue to the judge, "I wasn't REALLY going 70."

That is significantly different than what it is being discussed here. The Bush Admin freely admits to going 70 and claims, "there is no law stating the speed limit is 55." This is very different.

As I stated before, there is a difference between bad POLICY and breaking the LAW. I think a lot of people confuse these things. Congress knew about most of these activities and took no action. Gitmo is a great example. Once the Dems had power, why didn't they pass laws explicitly prohibiting it? The reason is they were politically complicit with the various activities that some people are calling for prosecutions over.

That's my fundamental problem with these liberal's positions. It's the classic "my side is good, yours is bad" that makes me sick. Bush could not have committed all these "crimes" without the tacit approval of many Democrats.

Ultimately, that's why I'm asking for specific laws that were broken. You will be hard pressed to find something in black and white because the Bush Administration exploited and stretched the gray area. You simply are not going to prosecute high ranking members of the administration with gray area - you need black and white. Congress failed to provide this.

God, and before any of you idiot hippies say "omg Orme is blaming Democrats for Bush's transgressions": get over yourself. This is about the corruption of government over the last 8 years being the fault of both sides, not one.

I went up 3 posts... no idea what you're talking about. I read Tarot's post - there is nothing about a specific law.

Again, you guys keep quoting questionable POLICIES.

The Bush Admin tortured, we get it. How is that ILLEGAL.

And why would I waste time Googling it myself. You want to change the world, find it for me.

It's right there in the name!

And if it's "gray" as you want to try to point out, then as everyone is saying there needs to be an investigation.

In this case, though, I don't find it gray at all. Bush had a specific, legal method for doing wiretaps, and he chose to skip it. The fact that Dems were too pussy to call him on it doesn't make it legal-- it just makes Dems pussies.



I would consider "unconstitutional" to be "illegal." Treaties entered, and all that.



That's a pussy answer. You know you are playing the semantics game here, and I am still struggling to figure out why I keep taking the bait. Perhaps I'll bow out.

I am not playing semantics, really. While it would be fun to torture you with semantics, I'm not. Pun intended.

The problem with "illegal" wiretapping, as you point out, is whether it was illegal. And again, with the torture - is it illegal?

I know you think I'm being obtuse for kicks, but I'm not. The problem I have (as I have repeated a gabillion times) is with these smug liberals who want to pretend they understand what's going on, calling for investigations, but don't seem to understand why other than they think it's wrong.

And no, saying I'm not going to spend a couple hours researching your point is not a pussy answer. If this was so open & shut, one of these political geniuses would be able to rattle off specific offenses rather than rambling about how "torture iz teh badz."

On one hand, I sort of agree with you. If I can't easily find a law and post it here for offenses which, I think, the majority of us would consider very serious(e.g. torture, wiretapping, other bad "policies") then I think someone, somewhere dropped the ball. On the other hand, I still want an investigation. If these things aren't illegal, why not? If nothing else, investigate, reveal the findings and then say "oh, sucks, this stuff is legal, technically. Maybe we should do something about that." At least draw attention to the issue.

I'm more concerned with matters of pragmatism than retribution anyway. I'd like to see the things that I consider basic human rights, given a civilized society, protected. Clearly they haven't been. If an investigation helps change that, I'm all for it. If it turns out that the things I'm concerned about ARE actually technically illegal and wrongdoers can be punished, even better. Either way, something should be done.

At this point I'm convinced he's just trolling. I honestly wouldn't bother.

Well, actually, it's part trolling - part desperately trying to prove that only "liberal pussies" want to see an investigation into it because we're all blind haters of Bush. Proven wrong, he falls back on semantics in another desperate attempt to champion a slightly more conservative stance to prove he's Mr. Middle of the Road.

Hah, you completely fail to cite any law, and I'm trolling.

I'll give you 3 dollars if you can name the 3 branches of government.

Of the plethora of things out there (and there's a lot) I think this is the most obvious ones. FISA was put in, and he skipped it. This is like saying, "the problem with murder is whether it is illegal."

I'm going to try hard to walk away from this at this point. Yes, I do believe you are being obtuse for your own amusement.

Orme: your argument is exactly why I believe there should be investigations.

It's not because we know specific laws were broken, it's precisely because we don't know and we should.

Bad things happened as a result of the Bush presidency. The public needs to know how they happened (and maybe why they happened), so we can prevent similar events in the future.

Whether or not anyone is brought up on charges is just a byproduct. Changes need to be made (more than just electing a new president). We can't know what changes to make without knowing how we got to where we are today.

Someone refresh my memory, when did Al Qaeda agree to the Geneva Convention? Do they also adhere to the Army Field Manual in terms of interrogation? Did the School of Americas at Fort Benning close during the Clinton years? Do we have proof that no people were trained in torture during the Clinton years? Has its successor been closed by President Obama?

If Al Qaeda isn't so bad, why don't we send an envoy to negotiate with them? Who wants to sign up for that one? If you think closing down Gitmo is so good, how about letting the ones we release from Gitmo live next to you if they aren't so bad? So what if a lot of the ones who have been released went right back to their killing ways? Who cares?

I think the thinly veiled message that President Obama is sending the military is - if you find someone we would have sent to Gitmo before on the battlefield - kill them rather than giving us the problem of having to find a place for them.

Personally, and you can hate me for this, but if torturing these cretins saved just one American life - I won't lose any sleep over it.

I don't think President Obama will push for anything to happen re: Bush because he doesn't want to set a precedent that the guy after him might decide to follow. If you are going to go after Bush for this you might as well go after Clinton for negligence for the way he ignored Al Qaeda. Besides that, there are more important issues to consume the government's resources. Excuse the man for doing he thought was right to protect the country.

President Obama is also a smart man - he knows that one attack on America, especially if it is shown it was aided by executive policy - could kill his chances of getting reelected. He is now privy to much more information than you or I will ever know about the security situation we are in now, and if he is slow to stop your favorite Bush-era anti-terrorist program, if you supported him you need to be patient and trust that he is acting in the best interest of the country's safety.

Irrelevant. WE did. We can only control what we do to others, not what others choose to do. We also can influence them by the way in which we choose to act.



Again, irrelevant.



No, but I wish it had. I still wish it would-- it's a distasteful facet of our country today.



Proving a negative is impossible. How convenient for you-- it's the same way that Bush managed to get us to kill thousands of Iraqi's and Americans in the war. "Prove that there are no WMD's!"

That said, I have no idea if people were trained in torture, but as was already mentioned, I don't see how you can train people to resist torture unless you have training in torture yourself. Doesn't seem unreasonable that we would have some people trained in its use, even if we never use it ourselves.



Uhh... he's been in office for a week? That said, see above.



Please quote where anyone here has ever said that Al Qauda "isn't so bad." If you can't find it, stop making shit up. Thanks.



If they aren't so bad, sure. We've already seen many many people who are there who have been shown to not be dangerous.



How do we know they have "killing ways"? Without due process, we have no idea who or what kind of people are in there, except through rumors. What exactly is "killing ways" anyway? Don't we kill thousands of people every year too?



Yes, that's exactly what he's saying /sarcasm.




Torturing these "cretins" has been shown to be ineffective, over and over again.

That said, given the lack of due process, how do we know they are cretins in the first place? Because the government says so? Excuse me if I'm skeptical, given our past.



If Obama continues to act as he has so far for his entire presidency, then he will have nothing to fear. This is a very limited window so far (he's only been in office for a week, after all), but so far the general openness of his administration (example: thay have announced that all documents in their administration will be assumed to be public information unless specifically made classified-- this is a reversal of the Bush (or perhaps Cheney) policy that documents were to be assumed classified unless declared public) will hopefully result in an administration that is far less corrupt than Bush's.



This is retarded hindsight-based Rush Limbaugh drivel.



For once, we agree on something.



Hell no. Good intentions are not good enough to excuse someone for their actions. The KKK genuinely thought they were protecting the country, too.



While I was (and still am) upset about Obama's acceptance of the wiretap program, it's also possible that some programs can't be just flipped off like a light-switch. Gitmo is a perfect example of that-- there's a lot of legal and logistical issues to be worked out to undo the incredible harm that Bush has done to our country and the world's impression of our country over the last 8 years.

Interrogation has not been shown to be ineffective. The question is simply how far and under what circumstances.

I'm not, but oh well. People are screaming for vengeance and don't really know why. I am amused by them.

And as I note, I completely buy Leo's position. God forbid, it's rational.

There is a difference between "holding accountable" and understanding where things went wrong.

If someone said, let's have a bipartisan committee that reviews XYZ activity and makes recommendations to Congress, I think that's great.

And one other thing, it's been 8 years since Clinton has been in office.

Can we stop discussing him?

Beh, that's the point I was trying to make back on page 1.

Anyway, what I find particularly amusing is the way people were salivating all over the possibility that 'whistleblowers' and such were going to crawl out of the woodwork once Bush left office. I'm not seeing it.

Fix the unconstitutional mess Bush made. Bring us into compliance with laws and treaties. Those are the current task as I see it. Revenge doesn't have to, nor should it, play a part.

You're calling this about 6 months too early. Time will tell, then you can laugh at me.

Conyers subpoena's Rove again.

The problem with whistleblowers AND members of the Democratic Congress is that everyone has blood on their hands. There won't be a substantive investigation.

Hell, look at Obama's executive order if you want a guide on how this will be run. There are "out's" for them to use if they find some high level dude and want to torture the shit out of him. More of the same.

Glad to hear it. It's almost exactly what I said on page one: We need an investigation to find out what if anything happened, not a prosecution.



The original poll is asking for an investigation. You can't really be held accountable for any potential crimes unless you have an investigation into it.

This question is frivolous and a waste of time. Grats, surcam, on cutting and pasting random articles about our lord and savior, G-Dub. I didn't really even bother reading all your pointless quotes and "information", and yet I somehow grasp your basic assumption: Is GW a "war criminal" and should the mighty B.O. "file charges"? Now, honestly sir, do you really fuckin believe that one president would/could file criminal charges on another based on "war crimes" (or accountability)? This would set a dangerous precedent for the future generations of presidents and lead to the downfall and collapse of not only our country, but to democracy in general. The bickering between the two morons (i.e. dems/repubs) would increase to greater heights, with each parties presidents holding the previous administration "accountable" for every minor infraction to sway the mob we refer to as "americans" to their side. Are you proposing, sir, that we take the first step in bringing down Western civilization? Your radical ideas are borderline tyranny and...foolish. In sum, i cast my vote for the latter option of, "surcam is a douchebag"....twice. See you in a few hours, homie.

- O

wowsa... who's this? heh

ONOES SOMEONE IS OFFENDED ON THE INTARWEBS!