Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Showing posts with label Torture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Torture. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
A Second Look...
Looking at the extended cut of the John Yoo interview, Jon Stewart did way better than I originally thought, particularly in parts 2 and 3.
There was no hammer moment, like with Cramer, but he did put it to him. Yoo had some intelligent things to say (though I still think they're still wrong).
That being said, it would have helped if Jon Stewart had started off with the basic question: "Do you think Torture or any of the methods you describe are a reliable means of collecting Intelligence?"
You probably would have answered: "It's not up to me. I'm not a strategtist. I was asked a legal question by the Bush White House, and I provided a legal answer."
Even though that question, to me and a lot of Legal scholars, had been answered by the drafting of the Geneva Conventions.
There was no hammer moment, like with Cramer, but he did put it to him. Yoo had some intelligent things to say (though I still think they're still wrong).
That being said, it would have helped if Jon Stewart had started off with the basic question: "Do you think Torture or any of the methods you describe are a reliable means of collecting Intelligence?"
You probably would have answered: "It's not up to me. I'm not a strategtist. I was asked a legal question by the Bush White House, and I provided a legal answer."
Even though that question, to me and a lot of Legal scholars, had been answered by the drafting of the Geneva Conventions.
Monday, January 11, 2010
What the @#$% was that?!?!? (VIDEO)
Watching the interview with John Yoo, I was looking forward to a Jon Stewart skewering. But it wasn't meant to be...
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
There's a part of me that believes, John Yoo was doing this @#$% on purpose. Clearly, it was making Jon's head hurt. Hell, it was making my head hurt. Maybe Yoo was dropped as a kid or something. I'm really starting to figure that these arguments make sense only to him, and the Bush Administration just say "Hell, go with it!"
Part 1:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Daily Show: Exclusive - John Yoo Extended Interview Pt. 1 | ||||
| ||||
Part 2:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Exclusive - John Yoo Extended Interview Pt. 2 | ||||
| ||||
Part 3:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Exclusive - John Yoo Extended Interview Pt. 3 | ||||
| ||||
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
The Inherent racism of the Torture Debate...
From Andrew Sullivan:
(And for the record, I prefer Stephanie Miller's "Crotch Bomber" reference.)
Bloggers have had a great time exposing the inconsistency on the pro-torture right. Why should Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab be tortured as an enemy combatant while Richard Reid was prosecuted by civilian authorities under Bush? Isn't the unconscious truth obvious? One has an English name; the other has a very foreign-sounding Muslim name. One was born in Bromley and one in Kenya. One is "us"; the other is "them". And it is much easier to torture them than to torture us. It just seems to me that this distinction has no moral, legal or strategic basis.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
The Third Hand...
There’s a concept I’ve been discussing with my Father recently; a concept I’ve given to calling, the “Third Hand”.
When a Political Figure acts against his nature, for whatever reason, there’s usually some other force at work, something we don’t see.
Put a simpler way, you got one hand on Obama pulling him one way, you got another hand pulling him in reverse, and then comes another hand (hint-hint: a Third Hand), which pushes him the way he actually goes.
Think of it like this, if there’s a situation where Obama does something to deliberately anger his base, logic suggests that the alternative, whatever it may be, is far worse.
Thus, we come to the release, or non-release, of those Abu Ghraib Photos, and the President’s reversal on that decision. My fellow Progressives/Liberals are justifiably upset by the decision…or maybe not so justifiably.
Looked at on its own, by itself the decision to withhold those photos is indefensible. Lord knows people I read, admire and respect have been dumping all over it. (Though I will say, David Kurtz in TPM comes very close to the explanation I'm about to give you, and...after all...he's a professional, and got there first, so...kudos.)
But…and I hate to bring the West Wing into anything…but it’s like President Bartlet said in the episode Hartsfield’s Landing (Episode 58, Season 3): “See the whole board…”
What do I mean by that?
Ask yourself, what happened? What made President Obama change his mind, or more to the point, has something changed that would make President Obama change his mind??
I’d say, yes.
Mind you this is just a theory, but at the same time...
Since the last week of April, beginning of May, there has been a considerable uptick in the violence in Pakistan, as the Taliban has moved ever closer to Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan (within 60 miles, so it seems). Now, the United States has been using Aerial drones to ice people across the Pakistani Border. The Pakistani Government has been upset about that, but since Pakistani’s Prime Minister is Asif Ali Zardari (aka Benazir Bhutto’s widower) and Islamist Militants were the ones who killed her, I don’t think he’s that upset…you know what I mean?
(In fact, should I mention that the Pakistani Government wants "ownership" over U.S. Drones? God, I hope we told them "hell, no.")
The situation was so bad that General Petraeus said that Pakistan was two weeks from falling, and the President was asked about the security of Pakistan’s Nuclear Arsenal at his last press conference.
But something has happened into the interim. Pakistan’s population has decided that they don’t much like the Taliban, or Taliban rule. In fact now that the Taliban has closed within 40 miles of the Capital, suddenly, we don’t have to bribe the Generals into defending their own country anymore. They’re actually (finally) pulling troops off the Indian border to get into the fight with the extremists. In fact, it’s creating something of a humanitarian crisis as refugees flee the fighting.
So, we are left with a situation where the Pakistani Military has finally gotten off its collective, and ineffective ass to start dealing some payback to the Taliban. There's popular support for the offensive in mainstream Pakistan, and all this is coming off recent American pressure to do so.
...and into this hyper-mega-combustile mix, some folks want to release some 2000 more photographs of Americans torturing Muslims?!?
Can you say…Danish Cartoons?? Times ten??
The President said that these Photographs were "not particularly sensational, particularly when compared to the painful images we remember from Abu Ghraib." Maybe, maybe not. We only have his word on this. I've heard in some quarters, these photos were pretty bad. They were bad enough to have Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman write the President a letter begging him to not to release the photos. (It's too bad they couldn't have gotten a Democrat to sign that letter. I would have been helpful if it was bipartisan.)
With the Pakistani populace finally seeing things our way, why do we want to go and insert into the discussion something that makes the Pakistanis start thinking that the Taliban has a point?!?
Listen, some of the stories I’m seeing are using a specific word: stall and/or delay. I think the Administration is eventually going to release these photos, on their own accord. Either that, or I wonder how far they'll fight the case in court. Either way, they’re not going to release those photos yet, not until Pakistan stabilizes.
Personally, I want the photos released, too, but I'm personally okay with this decision as long as it's only a stall, or a delay...and not an outright cancellation.
At the end of Hartsfield's Landing, Sam Seaborn (in case you don’t remember, played by Rob Lowe), asks President Bartlet (Martin Sheen), a question. The answer is one that is both simple and complicated all at the same time, and is one of the reasons (I trust) we all voted for the President in the first place:
I think the President might owe us a better explanation than the “safety of American Troops”, which is both true and hollow all at once. But this advice is coming from his Generals (something we all thought Bush didn't do enough of), and its coming from his OLC (who may actually have read a Law Book or two in their careers).
Still, I think the real reasons play across a far wider board...one we all should try to see, but that the President is ultimately responsible for.
Please remember, there was a reason we decided we wanted this man to call the plays.
UPDATE (5:26pm Pacific): For the record, I beat Joe Klein to the punch.
When a Political Figure acts against his nature, for whatever reason, there’s usually some other force at work, something we don’t see.
Put a simpler way, you got one hand on Obama pulling him one way, you got another hand pulling him in reverse, and then comes another hand (hint-hint: a Third Hand), which pushes him the way he actually goes.
Think of it like this, if there’s a situation where Obama does something to deliberately anger his base, logic suggests that the alternative, whatever it may be, is far worse.
Thus, we come to the release, or non-release, of those Abu Ghraib Photos, and the President’s reversal on that decision. My fellow Progressives/Liberals are justifiably upset by the decision…or maybe not so justifiably.
Looked at on its own, by itself the decision to withhold those photos is indefensible. Lord knows people I read, admire and respect have been dumping all over it. (Though I will say, David Kurtz in TPM comes very close to the explanation I'm about to give you, and...after all...he's a professional, and got there first, so...kudos.)
But…and I hate to bring the West Wing into anything…but it’s like President Bartlet said in the episode Hartsfield’s Landing (Episode 58, Season 3): “See the whole board…”
What do I mean by that?
Ask yourself, what happened? What made President Obama change his mind, or more to the point, has something changed that would make President Obama change his mind??
I’d say, yes.
Mind you this is just a theory, but at the same time...
Since the last week of April, beginning of May, there has been a considerable uptick in the violence in Pakistan, as the Taliban has moved ever closer to Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan (within 60 miles, so it seems). Now, the United States has been using Aerial drones to ice people across the Pakistani Border. The Pakistani Government has been upset about that, but since Pakistani’s Prime Minister is Asif Ali Zardari (aka Benazir Bhutto’s widower) and Islamist Militants were the ones who killed her, I don’t think he’s that upset…you know what I mean?
(In fact, should I mention that the Pakistani Government wants "ownership" over U.S. Drones? God, I hope we told them "hell, no.")
The situation was so bad that General Petraeus said that Pakistan was two weeks from falling, and the President was asked about the security of Pakistan’s Nuclear Arsenal at his last press conference.
But something has happened into the interim. Pakistan’s population has decided that they don’t much like the Taliban, or Taliban rule. In fact now that the Taliban has closed within 40 miles of the Capital, suddenly, we don’t have to bribe the Generals into defending their own country anymore. They’re actually (finally) pulling troops off the Indian border to get into the fight with the extremists. In fact, it’s creating something of a humanitarian crisis as refugees flee the fighting.
So, we are left with a situation where the Pakistani Military has finally gotten off its collective, and ineffective ass to start dealing some payback to the Taliban. There's popular support for the offensive in mainstream Pakistan, and all this is coming off recent American pressure to do so.
...and into this hyper-mega-combustile mix, some folks want to release some 2000 more photographs of Americans torturing Muslims?!?
Can you say…Danish Cartoons?? Times ten??
The President said that these Photographs were "not particularly sensational, particularly when compared to the painful images we remember from Abu Ghraib." Maybe, maybe not. We only have his word on this. I've heard in some quarters, these photos were pretty bad. They were bad enough to have Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman write the President a letter begging him to not to release the photos. (It's too bad they couldn't have gotten a Democrat to sign that letter. I would have been helpful if it was bipartisan.)
With the Pakistani populace finally seeing things our way, why do we want to go and insert into the discussion something that makes the Pakistanis start thinking that the Taliban has a point?!?
Listen, some of the stories I’m seeing are using a specific word: stall and/or delay. I think the Administration is eventually going to release these photos, on their own accord. Either that, or I wonder how far they'll fight the case in court. Either way, they’re not going to release those photos yet, not until Pakistan stabilizes.
Personally, I want the photos released, too, but I'm personally okay with this decision as long as it's only a stall, or a delay...and not an outright cancellation.
At the end of Hartsfield's Landing, Sam Seaborn (in case you don’t remember, played by Rob Lowe), asks President Bartlet (Martin Sheen), a question. The answer is one that is both simple and complicated all at the same time, and is one of the reasons (I trust) we all voted for the President in the first place:
SAMI don’t know how you... I don’t know the word. I...don’t know how you do it.BARTLETYou have a lot of help. You listen to everybody and then you call the play.
I think the President might owe us a better explanation than the “safety of American Troops”, which is both true and hollow all at once. But this advice is coming from his Generals (something we all thought Bush didn't do enough of), and its coming from his OLC (who may actually have read a Law Book or two in their careers).
Still, I think the real reasons play across a far wider board...one we all should try to see, but that the President is ultimately responsible for.
Please remember, there was a reason we decided we wanted this man to call the plays.
UPDATE (5:26pm Pacific): For the record, I beat Joe Klein to the punch.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Chris Matters kicks Rep. Thornberry's !@$!#$ (VIDEO)
For the record, Mac Thornberry (R-TX) is a lying sack of--
The amount of time, he spends twisting and contorting himself into a pretzel, labelling the torture at Abu-Gahrib a "systemic failure" that no one should be held accountable for. Ever.
The amount of time, he spends twisting and contorting himself into a pretzel, labelling the torture at Abu-Gahrib a "systemic failure" that no one should be held accountable for. Ever.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Elizabeth de la Vega Interview (VIDEO)
Following through on Barack Oblogger's post from earlier today, is this interview from Countdown with Keith Olbermann from April 22, 2009
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Keith with John Dean: Busy Night Part 1 (VIDEO)
This was a busy damn night. Lots of stories to cover, plus the Special Comment.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Thursday, February 5, 2009
A matter of emphasis...
I love the Mainstream Media because you can always go there to get such straight answers.
Can you detect the sarcasm in my voice? It's a blog, it's hard to tell.
For example, in Reuters today, you see the following headline: Obama CIA pick may back "limited" abuse prosecution.
Ahhh, wonderful to hear.
But wait a minute Reuters is European. (Damn you, old Europe!!) Time Magazine, a fine American publication, on the other hand, has a different take entirely called: Panetta: Don't Punish Waterboarding.
See, America the trick is...you gotta keep reading, because Time Magazine eventually says the same thing, despite its headline; which as you know is written by someone else.
For the record, that's whole Time article.
But before we go cheering Reuters, they loop back as well:
But at the same time...
This is all good, but the truth of what's going to happen probably lies somewhere in between Reuters and Time. I bet Panetta wouldn't mind prosecuting some of his guys, if for no other reason than to get them to squeal on the big fish: Rummy, Cheney and the unemployable Gonzalez. But remember, he's not a prosecutor. He also doesn't want to start a rebellion on his first day at Langley.
The best strategy is to punt the thing to Congress, and let them do the dirty (and constitutionally mandated) work.
But if there's one thing to bear in mind, that did put me in a bit of a cold sweat, it's this paragraph from the Reuters article:
So...the President might go back to torture, but he'll warn us first?
I don't see how that stands with "this president would do nothing that would violate the laws that are in place." Methinks (mehopes) this is a way to placate the Republicans on the panel.
Can you detect the sarcasm in my voice? It's a blog, it's hard to tell.
For example, in Reuters today, you see the following headline: Obama CIA pick may back "limited" abuse prosecution.
President Barack Obama's choice to head the CIA said on Thursday he would support "limited" prosecution of any agents who deliberately violated the law in interrogating terrorism suspects.
Former White House chief of staff Leon Panetta, in Senate confirmation hearings on his nomination, broke with outgoing CIA Director Michael Hayden to support a congressional inquiry into the agency's detention and interrogation program launched after the September 11 attacks.
He said the Senate Intelligence Committee would be an appropriate place for an inquiry "to learn lessons from what happened" in the program, and said he would do everything he could to cooperate.
Ahhh, wonderful to hear.
But wait a minute Reuters is European. (Damn you, old Europe!!) Time Magazine, a fine American publication, on the other hand, has a different take entirely called: Panetta: Don't Punish Waterboarding.
CIA Director nominee Leon Panetta says the CIA interrogators who used waterboarding or other harsh techniques against prisoners on the authority of the White House should not be prosecuted.
Panetta told a Senate panel on Thursday that those individuals should not be prosecuted or investigated if they acted pursuant to the law as presented by the attorney general.
See, America the trick is...you gotta keep reading, because Time Magazine eventually says the same thing, despite its headline; which as you know is written by someone else.
However, Panetta says that if interrogators went beyond the methods that they were told were legal, they should be investigated and prosecuted.
The Bush White House approved CIA waterboarding of three prisoners in 2002 and 2003. The CIA banned the practice internally in 2006.
President Barack Obama has prohibited harsh interrogation techniques.
For the record, that's whole Time article.
But before we go cheering Reuters, they loop back as well:
Panetta said he considered "waterboarding" to be torture, but did not support prosecuting agents who relied on high-level legal guidance allowing such techniques.
But at the same time...
However, "if there were those who deliberately violated the law, and deliberately took actions which were above and beyond the standards presented to them, then obviously in those limited cases there should be prosecution," he said.
This is all good, but the truth of what's going to happen probably lies somewhere in between Reuters and Time. I bet Panetta wouldn't mind prosecuting some of his guys, if for no other reason than to get them to squeal on the big fish: Rummy, Cheney and the unemployable Gonzalez. But remember, he's not a prosecutor. He also doesn't want to start a rebellion on his first day at Langley.
The best strategy is to punt the thing to Congress, and let them do the dirty (and constitutionally mandated) work.
But if there's one thing to bear in mind, that did put me in a bit of a cold sweat, it's this paragraph from the Reuters article:
Panetta said he would if necessary ask Obama to allow harsher interrogations than those covered by the Army Field Manual, which the president last month set as the government standard. The manual bans techniques such as waterboarding.
"I would not hesitate," to seek broader interrogation authority, Panetta said, adding "I think that this president would do nothing that would violate the laws that are in place."
He promised to tell Congress if Obama were to authorize a departure from standards the president imposed last month.
So...the President might go back to torture, but he'll warn us first?
I don't see how that stands with "this president would do nothing that would violate the laws that are in place." Methinks (mehopes) this is a way to placate the Republicans on the panel.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)