If you torture somebody they will say anything to escape the pain so how do we tell the truth if any from the lies?
Is getting bad inteligence in our interests? Is being worried that Muslim TV will broadcast our torturing Muslims going to turn all the Arab countries against us? The fact that we do waterboard I’m sure is really helping our image in the world.
America stands for something if we give up our principles we stand for nothing.
Oh wait why are we torturing people again if Bush has not sent one solder into Pakistan after Ossama to stop him from doing another 9/11! Who needs inteligence of dubious value if you never do anything about the cause of terrorism.

AttaTurk!!!

The sickest part of this is that Fox and 24/Jack Bauer have managed to convince people that the actual intelligence professionals and interrogators are not just wrong but wusses.

Apparently shooting someone in the kneecap and getting incorrect intel is far more satisfying than taking time to break them down psychologically with proven techniques that gain real intel. And in this 24-hour a day news cycle world, macho and speedy wins out over slow, smart and correct every time.

Having been through that training that all the wingnut talking heads babble on about, I can assure you that being strapped to a board and drowned with a wet towel over your face is most assuredly torture. If it’s not, why in the hell did they teach us what they did?

A lot could be told about the SERE (Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape) training that I got, but it is still classified, and I have to respect that nearly 30 years later. But in light of this controversy, it was well-known what the techniques used in training were, and we were told it was training to resist … wait for it…. torture, for as long as possible without getting ourselves killed.

The stories we heard, and the lessons we learned were from men who were real peers of John McCain, which is why it surprises me that he buys into any of this crap. He’d get a lot more respect if he would just stand up and say “This is Torture” instead of all the weasel-dick language he uses with his BFF Huckleberry Graham.

Torture is torture. Just because they taught us to recognize and resist to the best of our ability does not make it moral or right for my country to be practicing it.

“Probative” means that it “proves that they are guilty”. The problem is ANY coerced confession would be “probative”. And any real judge would throw out coerced confessions….oh wait, these ARE military judges in military tribunals where the defendants have been held in isolation for years so they suffer from Stockholm Syndrome. Tribunals where they have had limited contact, if any, with their lawyers ~ in private. Where they are not allowed to call witnesses or those that have accused them. Where they often haven’t learned the charges against them…even in the trial…as these are “secret”. Where the “evidence” against them is often based upon the confessions of others who have been tortured, but where the judges say they can’t reveal that because it’s secret.

And we are somehow to think that such trials are “FAIR”?

i wonder how much more pissed off we’d be if the senate (tuesday) and house (wednesday) intelligence committee hearings on torture with hayden testifying had been open to the public. and today hayden is appearing before the house appropriations subpanel on intelligence for another closed door hearing.

they must still be afraid of american’s response to what has happened if they are afraid to hold these hearings in public.

We need to start comparing all the GOP MSM talking heads to Joseph Goebbels when they start defending torture and our talking heads have to start making jokes about how Rush soon won’t be able to go to Haiti anymore for fear of arrest on war crimes.
Water Boarding is illegal as KO pointed out we tried a Japanese solder for doing that in WW2. Isn’t defending or rather promoting a crime inciting people to do a crime if you convince them they won’t face prosecution.
This is a tricky legal area I am speculating here. But is this any different than inciting a lynch mob to murder even if you don’t commit the crime yourself you are still guilty of murder then right?
The CIA acted because they were assured they wouldn’t be prosecuted. They took Rush and companies comments as proof that Bush was using the GOP media machine to provide cover for their crimes. We need the White House and RNC emails to *cough* journalists!

Utterly beyond Kafkaesque

… and while i’m on the subject of congressional hearings….

today the at 10 am, the Senate Judiciary is scheduled to hold a business meeting. on the agenda are specter’s fisa bill and resolution of contempt for rove and bolton (for refusing committee subpoenas).

Yep they are still afraid even after they destroyed the pictures. Heck they could have put a blue dot over the agents faces to protect their identity if they were really worried about protecting the agents identity.
But considering the CIA’s response to Valerie Palme being outed the protect the agents excuse just doesn’t hold water.

Is there a statute of limitations on war crimes?

there are more pictures and videos.

Does anyone else here feel like reading Sun Tze page by page sometimes and seeing how many times in how many ways Bush has waged this war by going against what Sun Tze suggests.
Although even Sun Tzu would be surprised by a leader who when attacked invades the wrong country. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 Pakistan is where Ossama is at leaving an enemy alone who attacked you once so he can attack you again as chance permits is a level of insanity worthy of Nero.

Our solders did this Rummy knew and did nothing? Torturing kids and doing nothing to stop it deserves a special place in HELL!

No

No statute of limitations on war crimes.

Our solders did this Rummy knew and did nothing? Torturing kids and doing nothing to stop it deserves a special place in HELL!

and now we know that our congressional leaders knew about the torture too (although hopefully not the part about the kids) and did nothing – except aid in the coverup.

seriously, we need to have jello jay and reyes (chairs of the senate and house intelligence committees) DUMPED.

russ feingold for senate intelligence chair
rush holt for house intelligence chair

that would give us some responsible oversight.

Thanks I needed some good news:)

The translation I have (S.F. Kaufman) mentions the perils of skipping ahead. I take that to mean that if you find yourself fighting a non-defensive war, you’ve probably screwed up. From Book 1:

Preparation for war takes considerable study before orders should be passed to generals and then to the captains and ranks.

1. The morality of the project is essential to the outcome of the project. You must know what you wish to accomplish and why. … Do [your generals] believe in you as a leader? Do YOU believe in yourself as a leader? If everything is balanced in your favor then proceed to the next step. If not, rethink your attitude and desires.

Anyone for numbers 2—6?

I want Feingold to take Harry’s job as head of the Senate.

i’d like to see feingold be president.

but i’m trying to think of what changes could made to have the biggest impact and that aren’t entirely out of the realm of possibility.

intelligence oversight is seriously fucked up in both the house and senate. feingold and holt are both excellent members of the intelligence committees – holt led a recent revolt of the progressive caucus in the house to force the house leadership to back off some of the worse aspects of their fisa bill.

Good morning pups!

Woke up at 4:57 am and tried to go back to sleep listening to the podcast of Rachel from the night before last. Though it often helps when I do so in earlier hours, this time I listened to the whole thing.

The layers of the onion of the torture scandals seem endless. That the immorality of torture isn’t even part of the discussion anymore is astounding to me.

On another note, AAR fired Kent Jones—”a business decision” which means they are getting leaner by the day. How long before they fade away?

My Translation by Samuel Griffith seems to be little different or I’m reading the wrong page. Pg 65 of my version or pg 3 of the actual book after all the foreword and commentary (7) Tu Mu:…” If wise a commander is able to recognize changing circumstances and to act expediently” (Expediently! like after how many years of knowing Iraq had no WMD in Iraq, or the fact that Ossama is in Pakistan how long does it take our Generals to change plan and go after Ossama? Given all the money and weapons we have given Pakistan we should expect a little something in return.)

How long before they fade away?

how many progressive institutions have been able to maintain a progressive vision with an anti-democratic organization that depends on corporate funding?

Ah. Kaufman is a swordsman.

One thing about this gang of miscreants that has struck me from the start is their inability to do anything expeditiously. You always can hear bones cracking. The biggest exceptions I can think of are getting Chalabi back into Iraq, and establishing the Gulag apparatus we’re so outraged about right now.

Good morning, pups. It’s TOMC and Cohen in the NYT today. TOMC gets dyspeptic over the Republicans trying to take over from W. She says the Republican presidential pack is one extremely unappealing bunch of politicians, and Mike Huckabee is this week’s exercise in avoidance. Mr. Cohen used the word “zeitgeist,” probably just to annoy me. He says Mitt Romney’s speech and the emergence of the anti-Darwin Baptist minister Mike Huckabee suggest how estranged the American zeitgeist is from the European.

http://mgpaquin.wordpress.com/

The coffee, tea and hot chocolate are ready, and I’ve got a selection of bagels with cream cheese. It’s supposed to be in the mid 80s again today. The TV hairdos that do the weather keep promising it’s going to get cooler, but not yet…

Pg 68 (24) “Keep him under a strain and wear him down”.
Pg 73 (3) “Victory is the main object of war. If this is long delayed, weapons are blunted and morale depressed.” 6 years after 9/11 and we still haven’t sent one solder against Ossama!

Pg 73 (7) ” For there has never been a protracted war from which a country has benefited.” Although the oil companies and war profiters certainly have!

Pg 73 (9) ” Those who are adept in waging war do not require a second levy of conscripts nor more than one provisioning.” Just how many tours of duty have our solders done since the start of the war?

Your translation seems interesting I’ll try to remember to check it out next time I go to the bookstore.

Is this the same Kaufman who translated Nietzche?

Gen. Thomas Hartmann is either the new breed of soldier or a pod person planted here to walk in lockstep with Bush and Cheney. Probably not in the history of the US military has torture been considered as a means to elicit information, knowing that in the very best of situations that it’s unreliable. Does Hartmann honestly believe the horror that he is mouthing? If he does, he is the new military and a military that will eventually turn on American civilians whenever it feels like it. If he doesn’t believe it, he is perhaps worse. He’s a man without a conscience.

http://13martyrs.blogspot.com/

Not to mention global response… Hmmm something the Hague might be interested in learning…

My response @ 30 was replying to Selise @ 4. Sorry I still have problems with the “replying” display…

the hague only has moral authority – no power to enforce.

I wonder how much information given under torture has checked out as fact later on and what percent is garbage. Plus how much time was wasted checking out all the bogus intel?

That the immorality of torture isn’t even part of the discussion anymore is astounding to me.

And the underlying problem *is* the acceptance of theargument that rejecting torture is “soft on terrorism”.
America, the terrorists have won.
With one cowardly attack, a small group of individuals with limited means, have effected the changes on our society which they sought. They have given the cowardly elements of our society the strength to regard fundamental liberties and rights as irrelevant.

If the intel is so good how about Bush declassifying the stuff that sent Jose Padilla to jail? I wonder how a kid with a high school education was going to build a dirty bomb and where was he suppose to get the radioactive material?

Yesterday, before the Senate Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security subcommittee hearing [egr bold]

Correction: the hearing was Tuesday 11 December. Other coverage of the hearing in this post.

It does not matter.
This is not an argument to follow.
Although the concensus is that torture produces unreliable information, you can get caught defending indefensible persons if any grain of valid information came after torture.
This is the spin right now from the CIA official.
“It was wrong, but it saved some lives.”
Torture is wrong the way mass murder and genocide are wrong.
Genocide can solve crime, poverty and overpopulation, but it is WRONG.
Torture might result in *some* valid and valuable information, but it is WRONG.

That was an interestig question. Seems not, this is Stephen F. Kaufman. The Nietzsche translator is W. Kaufmann.

I wonder how many Iraq’s were tortured before we figured out that no Iraq had no WMD? Or ties to Al Quieda? Torturing when we were WRONG about the intel seems a waste of time.

Personally, I think the sick part of the torture and the Guantanamo “debate” is the argument that, who cares about these people because they’re terrorists. It’s just assumed that they are dangerous criminals even though it’s been proven that not all of them are. It’s just a dangerous, disgusting argument and it fits right in with the immigrant hate that the Repugs have been spouting.

If you can’t tell what the truth is but you waste manpower checking it out then you take troops away from doing constructive things that have a better chance of saving solders lives.
Like not torturing people and fixing the power outside the Green Zone, or getting clean water for Iraqi’s or creating jobs for all the unemployed Iraq’s.
Rather than torture we should be trying to make friends by making the Iraqi’s lives better, although its too late for that now.
I agree it is always wrong. I’m trying to prove that its also a waste of time my idea is that instead of torture making friends in Iraq would lead to better tips from grateful Iraq’s if we had only tried this from the start.

From news articles, a few minutes of Washington Journal and others I’ve read/seen in the last few hours, this is going to be a VERY bad day for dims. They are getting nailed on every front for their lack of spines and I have great fear it’s going to have a terrible effect in the 2008 elections. Not that they don’t bloody damn well deserve it!

Have to leave shortly to attend a funeral (unexpected death of one of my last old-time relatives) and it somehow feels like a metaphor for the party for which I had so much hope in 2006.

Good Morning!

Here’s the lineup for Washington Journal

7:30 am Chris Wilson and Gary Nordlinger on the Iowa Republican Debate
8:30 am Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN), Blue Dog Democrat on the Alternative Minimum Tax
9:00 am John Walters, Office of National Drug Control, Director

The Iraq’s I’m sure are using our use of torture as a justification to kill Americans just what is the latest poll numbers of Iraq’s who think it is ok to kill Americans?
I’m sure our torturing people is number 2 or 3 at least on their reasons why its ok to kill Americans.
And that is why we have to leave Iraq a majority not only does not want us there, a majority thinks its ok to kill us. So how the heck can we keep the peace then?

Read my comments toward the end of the last thread. I think in the long run it could help us.

Fox News ‘Comedian’ Declares ‘Waterboarding: It’s A Good Thing’

Greg Gutfeld said;
Now, waterboarding might be torture, but as long as people I hate also hate waterboarding, then I love it more than life itself. … So I cherish waterboarding. I want to make it our national sport, our national bird. I want to make the waterboard the state flower of Vermont, instead of the Birkenstock.

TP bold

Selise,

Moral authority only here, thanks to Jesse Helms in 2002. Otherwise, it appears the International Criminal Tribunal/War Crimes Tribunal has legal authority from a treaty perspective.

And they wonder why their support is at 30% :)

First things first. It worked during the thanksgivig recee and we need it again now!!!!!
Pro Forma Time!!!!

So I cherish waterboarding. I want to make it our national sport, our national bird. I want to make the waterboard the state flower of Vermont, instead of the Birkenstock.

Typical Fox a-hole.

Here’s another good one over in teh fdl news section:

A top adviser to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign said Wednesday that Democrats should give more thought to Sen. Barack Obama’s admissions of illegal drug use before they pick a presidential candidate.

I wonder how many Iraqis decided to hate America after they heard about Abu Ghraid was our use of torture what sent the majority of Iraqis against us? We need more and better polling from Iraq.

Just how desperate is Hilary she is risking pissing off the African American vote if she becomes the Presidential Nominee a Democrat can’t win without a high African American turnout. What is Rahm and Penn smoking first immigrants and now African Americans.

I can’t take this. Really. I left the U.S. in 2004 because I was like, hey, I have an opportunity and now is a good time to get out for awhile….no more anxiety attacks for a couple of years was nice. Now that I’m back, everyday I read the news I just want to leave again. Like how Pelosi et. al. caved yesterday on war funding, the same day that Bush vetoed S-CHIP AGAIN. Rather than play hardball, or at least tit for tat (i.e. S-CHIP passed in exchange for war funding) we hear Bush is winning a “significant legislative victory” by the dems caving on war funding and they’re GETTING NOTHING IN RETURN. NOTHING.

What f**ing insanity is this?

Do we HAVE any leaders in our democratic party?!?

Here’s an idea. Since waterboarding is so effective, perhaps it should be made a tool of our congressional investigative committees. [edited by mod] /s

[Mod Note; Just a reminder, please don’t advocate violence towards others, including public officials, in the comments here at FDL - even if it is intended to be snark. Thanks.]

how many tears can this man shed for our constitution?

when does the well grow dry

”If the evidence is reliable and probative and the judge concluded it is in the interest of justice to use that evidence”

I know this is the point you’re making attaturk but obviously it cannot be reliable nor probative SINCE it was tortured from the victim

this is like saying;

“you can use water to dry your towel so long as that water is wet”

“… Lee Greenwood songs thrust upon us”?

“you can use water to dry your towel so long as that water is wet”

oops, this sould read;

“you can use water to dry your towel so long as the water is dry

it can’t happen

Perfect just bring out a big tub of water at the next Congressional hearing place it right in front of Gonzo and suddenly we will have the GOP all screaming about intimidating witness.
To which we reply 1) we didn’t lay a hand on him…Yet and 2) I thought you said water boarding is not a crime if it is so effective in Iraq we thought we might use it to get a straight answer out of Gonzo, because nothing else has worked.

At 2:00 pm CSPAN 3 will broadcast the Democratic debate live from Iowa

No Kucinich, no Gravel tho
“The candidates who will take part are Senator Joe Biden, Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator Chris Dodd, Senator John Edwards, Senator Barack Obama and Governor Bill Richardson.”

You know, “I’d gladly stand up and defend her still today”, even thought he didn’t when it was his time.

Hi Mod my response at 58 should be to Bilbo @55 I don’t know how I messed up and got my response to say @1

In any other admninistration, Gen. Hartmann would be dismissed from the service and his law license, if he has one, would be subject to review.

There is no limit to the depth of their depravity. To back into a rationalization that evidence obtained during waterboarding should be used in our legal system by saying it is not torture if performed on our own soldiers is purely a legal argument to cover the putrid ass of our own Coward in Chief. Any Goldstar mothers out there want to horsewhip General Lickspittle? The new argument is its’ not really torture, everyone does it, what’s the big deal. Bush did’t really commit any warcrimes. Our soldiers are so brave they will volunteer to be waterboarded. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

yea, like the Nixon and Reagan admins.

No statute of limitations on war crimes.

So Georgie’s trip to Paraguay may be the last international flight he ever makes.

Didn’t someone introduce a bill to extend the applicable SOL here in the U.S.? I’m assuming it went nowhere, but if passed, that would be a nice first project for the next (Dem) Secretary of State – negotiating an extradition treaty with Paraguay…

In any other admninistration, Gen. Hartmann would be dismissed from the service and his law license, if he has one, would be subject to review. In the Bush administration, he’ll get another star. I had thought that ever since Nuremburg, following superior orders was not an adequate defence for criminal conduct.

Has anyone in the pentagon ever heard of a lie detector

sadly legal authority is not the same thing as power to enforce. courts need the police.

Does it have wires and a switch?

I’m sure it would give us better intel than torture :) Even with all the limitations of the device plus nobody would have to get hurt. But do the Bushies like to torture people?
I don’t know why they haven’t used them.

I want Congress to ask everyone they interview why lie detectors are not being used instead of torture.

So, Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, the legal adviser to the military tribunal system:
– can’t say whether waterboarding is torture,
– thinks that waterboarding can yield reliable evidence,
– thinks that it can be in the interest of justice to use such evidence,
– would not rule out the waterboarding of detainees.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.” (Upton Sinclair)

Because they can.

If torture is so great at producing Intel then why are we losing in Iraq? We certainly are not winning unless you define winning as less troops dying.
Which is good but I still call that losing. When we can’t stop the enemy from replacing and or growing their forces faster than we can kill them. When we can’t cut off their money and weapons supply then we are losing just losing more slowly.

I had thought that ever since Nuremburg, following superior orders was not an adequate defence for criminal conduct.

With McCain’s Detainee Treatment Act, we structured into law a minor variant of the Nuremberg defense that I call the “good-faith defense”:

Good faith reliance on advice of counsel should be an important factor, among others, to consider in assessing whether a person of ordinary sense and understanding would have known the practices to be unlawful.

You are too nice its because they are sick and twisted!

There is nothing to win or lose.

I guess I see these as the same.

Exactly!!!

Because they enjoy it Lie Detectors while more effective would not be as much (bleech!) fun.

It helps keep the chickenshit American public scared. . .

I watched a 50’s movie recently entitled “The Circle of Deception.” It was about the British sending a soldier to German-occupied France during WWII with the intention that he be captured, tortured and broken to give the Germans misleading information.

What torture did those hideous Nazis use? First beating with a cord, then electric shock and finally waterboarding. So shameful that we now find ourselves in this position! When the Nazis did it, we knew it was torture.

Just Bush’s delusions of being a successful war president protecting us from imaginary WMD and Ossama who is in Pakistan this war is now about preserving the Presidents pride while he is still in office so he can blame the next President for his failures.
We so need to fire every General who said yes to Bush about HIS war plans who never mentioned that “but Mr President Ossama is in Pakistan”

Torturers want to exert complete and total control over another human being. This is the step after denying clemency in death penalty cases, branding people in college, abusing siblings, blowing up frogs. It is a progression of crimes. An autopsy would show he is full of worms. He has rationalized every sick, sorry thing he has done during his whole rotten life, and that is what is being done now.

I am steamed that Kucinich is being silenced; Gravel, too.

Important voices that need to be heard…

Despite being the top-ranked Presidential candidate in polls conducted by Democracy for America (DFA), Progressive Democrats of America (PDA), and one of the country’s leading progressive publications, The Nation, Kucinich was not invited to participate in the debate because “It was our determination that a person working out of his home did not meet our criteria for a campaign office and full-time paid staff in Iowa,” according to a statement from the newspaper’s top officials, including editor Carolyn Washburn.

http://www.dennis4president.co…..er-debate/

oh, and brig. general hartmann deserves the brig himself. for shame.

I wonder if Al Quieda saw that movie. I wonder if because of false intel our troops have been led to ambushes?
Of course I don’t expect the *cough* brains at the Pentagon to have ever considered that. Or if it has happened already to admit it.

The reason that we aren’t winning in Iraq is that Bush’s definition of win involves an obvious contradiction. His stated objective is to install a sovereign government in Iraq, a nation at civil war. By definition, that civil war must get resolved first, since the common working definition of “sovereign” is “possessing a monopoly on violence.”

Does anyone believe the CIA disinformation agent’s claim it,now part of the national conversation, the water boarding was effective in 35 seconds? Can we see that short clip?
Does any one really know what was on the disinformation tape shown the democrats? I remember hearing repub & dems got different virtual showings ,not actual footage of the incident as I understand it.

Yep it is hopeless on so many levels.

One point that concerns me is that in no case that I have heard of so far does there seem to have been a time-critical need to torture a prisoner. One of the rationales for keeping torture as a questioning technique is that there may arise situations where we have to know something immediately in order to stop a pending terrorist act and so-in-so, who happens to be in our custody, may have that information — so torture him to get it. After all, officials can rationalize this by saying that they are trying to save lives that otherwise might be lost over the next 24 or 48 hours.

But, which of the cases of torture that we have seen so far can possibly be identified with this scenario? Where was the critical need for gaining the knowledge *NOW* instead of over time as the more traditional methods of questioning prisoners leads to? Was all this torture done simply because the higher ups like the President and vice-President were impatient?

Yep it is hopeless on so many levels.

The logic of BuchCo’s strategy is truly mindboggling. Bush claims to want to shore up the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government. Meanwhile his field commander is arming, training, and paying protection money to that governments enemies, the Sunni insurgents. And the resulting lessening of their attacks on our forces is hailed as “military success.” Duh!!!

Hey everybody, check this out—

Scarecrow is on the front page of Digg’s World and Business News of the last 24 hours with 522 diggs.

Congratulations Scarecrow!

link: http://digg.com/world_business/popular/24hours

Where José Rodriguez, said to be

“a product of what one former agency colleague called ‘the rough-and-tumble’ Latin American division” of the CIA from the 1980s

got his OJT:
The Unholy Trinity: Death Squads, Disappearances, and Torture — from Latin America to Iraq

It is disgusting that a lawyer would talk like this. On the other hand, he is a military lawyer. When I was in the army (or shortly after I got out) I saw a book, Military Justice is to Justice as Military Music is to Music, by Robert Sherrill. Link. The Google says the title is a Mark Twain quote. Maybe I should send the general a copy.

Anyone catch John Kiriakou on All Things Considered yesterday? It was a strange interview, and Robert Seigel basically let him get away with the Jack Bauer crap. NPR Check has a good piece up about it.

The links for Scarecrow aren’t working for me. Which diary was it?

http://firedoglake.com/2007/12…..-policies/

CIA Won’t Take the Fall for Bush’s Torture Policies

Now up to 553 diggs.

Bush is a de facto leadership role model for the Country, and he’s Condoning Torture.

How long until Gangs are Waterboarding old folks for their savings?

And the Cops are Waterboarding gang members for their hide-outs?

And the Church is Waterboarding suspected Sinners?

Where does it end?

http://waterboarding.org/success_story

Waterboarding Success Stories: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Library Tower

The waterboarding of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is often cited as one of the major waterboarding “success stories”. ABC News reporter Brian Ross credited waterboarding for the crucial information used to avert the destruction of Library Tower…

[Mod Note; Edited by Mod for length. To help keep the FDL servers running smoothly and to avoid any copyright issues, please do not post entire articles. Thank you.]

This is just me, but I wouldn’t take their word for it.

Chimp called the Library Tower the “Liberty Tower”? Jeebus what a doofus.

Where is everyone? Shouldn’t there be a new diary by now? Are we so disheartened that we’re losing our spirit? I’m worried that they’re ‘breaking’ us.

We’re not broken when pups go viral on digg and youtube (scarecrow and selise) and on TV (Jane and Christy). i think we are doing amazing things here. Take heart.

Where does it end?

When they start using it on Republicans.

We’re here! Not to worry, not losing our spirit. Frazzly busy with the Real World and stopping by whenever we can. Right, pups?

Coming out today the report on perf-enhancing drugs in baseball. Names will be named. Sounds like one of ‘em will be Clemons and other pitchers. Gee, who’d’a thunk…

My take…it’s pervasive. It got a wink-and-a-nod all the way up to the highest levels of the game… Gee, another legacy of Bushist Merrika.

Oh look! The Feds are issuing subpoenas. But not on our numerous war criminals and war profiteers, but on Sharpton’s civil rights organization. WTF?

10 am – the senate judicary committee business meeting should be starting now. on the agenda is the vote for the rove/bolton contempt resolution and specter’s “compromise” fisa bill.

sadly, i know of no way for us to listen. the sjc is not streaming it, c-span is not covering it and capitolhearings.org’s audio feed is still down.

Rove/Bolton? Or is it Bolten?

Not that Bolton doesn’t deserve a swift kick in the pants as well.

sadly, i know of no way for us to listen. the sjc is not streaming it, c-span is not covering it and capitolhearings.org’s audio feed is still down.

Reporters?

Sorry, for a moment there I thought we still had an active, operational First Amendment. How about a cell phone feed? Thinking outside the box….

The new administration must force B. General Hartman to retire. The U.S. does not need proponents of torture in any position of power.

Are we so disheartened that we’re losing our spirit?

i’m a bit worried too.

looks like matt stoller has stopped work on the “no retroactive immunity” fisa campaign – without even telling us until yesterday… and even then he didn’t mention the campaign, only that he’s not following the issue any more.

would love it if i wasn’t virtually the only person commenting on his thread (see especially my comment at #4). any firepups with accounts at openleft?

p.s. thanks to kathryn in ma for the upbeat comment.

Good morning all…jumping in to say hi. Those of us who try to lurk/work are being tortured by work these days (at least me). It’s the last rush toward the holidays–everyone is trying to get everything done this week. So, that may account for the quiet.

I’m really interested in the CIA angle–if you strip away the horror of the situation (and the impact on the very foundation of our constitution), the whole organizational response is very familiar to those of us who have spent any time in corporate america and have lived through “regime change” there… There comes a point where the “workers” who did what the old bosses told them to do rise up and refuse to take the blame for their actions. Innoculation?

Glenzilla:

You see, all of this behavior by the Democrats is absolutely necessary. They have no choice. Otherwise, Rush Limbaugh and Fox News will attack them for being weak (as though there is some circumstance under which they wouldn’t) and that would be terrible. Nothing exudes strength, courage, toughness and resolve like having your behavior continuously described — accurately — as “bowing,” “capitulating,” “backing down,” “caving” and “surrendering.” Those are the verbs Americans love most when looking for the party to lead them.

thanks for the typo correction. it’s bolten with an “e” – bush’s old chief of staff

Great catch.
The Circle of Deception
I’ve thought of that movie frequently since the topic of waterboarding “surfaced.”

A long awaited new thread is upstairs…

Morning;
The two embassy attacks in Mombassa and Nairobi were retaliations to torture. The culture is vengeful. Why are our officials daring them? Do they want another USS Cole type surprise attack? This is insanity. The chain of command starts at the white house with the prezident. Impeach now. Today is moveon.orgs anti war protest.

Glenzilla, they do have a choice, I think that is why a large percentage of the posters here are utterly frustrated with the democrats. They seem to babble a lot about action, but end up doing nothing. They state their beliefs, then later rebuke them to fit whatever the argument is at hand.

Not that I am a big supporter of Huckabee, and regardless if you agree with him or not, everyone here knows where he stands on just about everything. Where does Pelosi stand? Hillary? Harry Reid?

Bush is another good example. I know no one here cares for him, but he has not backed down on anything relating to the Iraqi conflict (can’t say that for immigration however). How many of the worthless bills has the democratic congress put forward trying to defund the Iraq war? Every time they have failed to do what was needed, or to follow up with their rhetoric.

Someone yesterday said it best: there is no Democratic Party in Washington, D.C. The nominal Democrats there, i.e. incumbents, including the last bunch elected in Nov. ‘06, are in the game for their own reasons and have nothing to do with the sentiments of the base, which I daresay sees an America that tortures as no America at all.

And so we have it: no Democrats in D.C., and no America at all.

During the next big war, our soldiers and citizens will be tortured on live TV and the world will say we had it coming. None of this will matter, however, because we will already have fallen so low.

Wouldn’t take his word for it? Did you see the address of the link, “waterboarding.org”?

Doesn’t the warm puke of this “everyone knows where he stands, hasn’t backed down” argument ever catch in your throat? It’s inane and specious. By that logic Chamberlain was worse than Hitler.

Here’s what “everyone knows” by now: he’s a liar and a mental defective. Hopefully we can impress on them that he’s above all a war criminal. Hasn’t “backed down” under invading a country under false pretenses with a too-small army. He’s a regular fucking profile in courage.

Where the “evidence” against them is often based upon the confessions of others who have been tortured, but where the judges say they can’t reveal that because it’s secret.

And we are somehow to think that such trials are “FAIR”?

“FAIR” is not the most important thing. Actually far more important is that Justice is done and that can only be achieved if proper procedures are followed. Accepting testimony received under duress is known to NOT produce the Truth and to NOT produce Justice.

But, I suppose they aren’t really interested in Truth or Justice in the Bushie ‘Fantasy-based’ administration.

Sodomizing children – the administration has sanctioned – is complicit in – child abuse and child pornography.