<p>Even though the Iranian and North Korean regimes are significantly more dangerous…</p>
<p>(too bad we’re tapped out in Iraq, when the real threat comes…which it will)</p>
<p>If this was all so convincing, Rice wouldn’t have to LIE about it, and GW wouldn’t come off sounding like…well, GW.</p>
<p>“of course the jews should be interned in camps… our leaders tell us this is the best for us as they are a threat to our way of life…”</p>
<p>Isn’t it funny how things can so easily repeat themselves in history? </p>
<p>Go ahead and get mad about the referrence, then think for 5 seconds what you endorse as a way of life to ensure ours. As if there are no other alternatives out there.</p>
<p>Don’t you guys get tired of (or at least get embarrassed by) statements such as this ^^^?</p>
<p>To equate interrogation of known killers with the intent to save additional lives with sending jews to death camps is a bit beyond the pale. Unfortunately, hyperbolic rhetoric of this sort is becoming almost the norm these days.</p>
<p>FF,</p>
<p>I’ll get embarassed the day you are about what you post. </p>
<p>Take off your daddy shoes… you ain’t mine, big fella. </p>
<p>You post as if you’re in some sort of conservative enlightenment with a large rubber stamp of what this administration does. </p>
<p>Even GW or was it Rummy…, that posed the question of the population ignoring Hilter and Mussolini and what that meant to the world as a result. </p>
<p>Of course, he and Gw also cried “ollie ollie oxen free”, spun around three times… and thus… the world was not allowed to question what they were doing, but trust them it was what was best for the world. (Wink, Wink, a touch of the nose…)</p>
<p>You of course, support the “ollie ollie oxen free party” by either trying to make the opposing opinion look either uninformed or unpatriotic in their lack of support for the ollie ollie party… I forget, wasn’t there a group back then that enforced compliance through similar practices (early on) and lead a country into a war destined to fail? </p>
<p>Wasn’t there a group that so believed in what their leader had to say that to doubt his words and actions was considered treasonable? </p>
<p>Questioning of a national leader is an American right. You got to do it in the 90’s. Others get to do it now. To not question authority is about as unpatriotic as you can get… Besides it’s pretty probable that the shoes will be on the other foot in a couple of months… Then you can be as unamerican, un patriotic and a supporter of fascism as I am today according to this administration. </p>
<p>Cheers.</p>
<p>Quote:
Look at the number of plots that have been disrupted using the techniques of this administration (and also note safeguards and openness of the process - including keeping Congress informed) and ask yourself, would you have preferred that the intended victims of these plots to now be dead? If one of these victims was a family member, would you still claim that the way of the ACLU is the correct way?</p>
<p>Note, how such questions are conveniently overlooked in favor of sentimental talks about humanity and forgiveness. I wonder how many people would answer “yes” to your question if they were not so shy. In a world where full comprehension of life realities and thoughts about real terrorist victims give you not just cold chills but sweating nightmares (see post #29), it must feel good to resent to compassions for interrogated professional murderers. As for the real victims, this subject seems too touchy and distasteful. Besides, the next attack has not happened yet, hasn’t it? And even if it does, how many people believe that it is likely to affect them and their families?</p>
<p>Opie, you are right, I did get to do it in the 90’s and I remember very vividly what my thoughts and thinking process were - and not once did I have a kneejerk, 180-degree opposite view from that of Bill Clinton just because he was a Democrat or because he was a sleazeball. Sometimes I agreed with him, many times I did not - but it was always based on policy, not politics or personality and I never longed for the day “where I could put my boot on the neck” of those who disagreed with me as one of your more notorious confederates here is anxious to do.</p>
<p>Sorry, funding. I, for one, saw the Balkans as a threat to national security, for much the same reason I saw Iraq – the confrontation between Islam and Christendom, which is what the Balkans was largely about. We intervened in the Balkans to save Muslim lives, it was the right thing to do, and it almost – almost – got a peace agreement for Palestine and killed Islamism as a political force. The leading pre-9/11 book on the history of Islamism, Gilles Kepel’s “Jihad”, which was originally published in spring 2001, reported that Islamism was essentially a dead letter politically except for Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden trying to figure out how to make some sort of splash.</p>
<p>And this stuff about torture saving lives is generally a lot of hoo-hah. I’m sure it works sometimes – especially on “24”. But as far as I can tell there are two much bigger problems with torture, besides offending my values – it does, but I would be prepared to negotiate a bit with my values, just like Jack Bauer, to serve some higher end. First, according to pretty much everything I have read it does not produce reliable information, or it produces a whole bunch of information, some of which is reliable and some of which is completely wrong, and it does not maximize the reliable information produced. In other words, it does not work well as an investigative technique, especially when you are starting close to zero in your background knowledge. Secondly, the belief that the US tortures prisoners put US soldiers and civilians who may become the prisoners of others at much higher risk of being tortured themselves. (Note that I am not saying the risk is zero without us being torturers, because it isn’t, but the risk increases significantly, and not just in the particular theater of operations in which the torture is occurring.) I think that is part of McCain’s position. </p>
<p>Also, something especially disgusting about our recent flirtation with torture is that we apparently had no idea who most of the people we were holding were. I believe we engaged in torture of a lot of people who were, if not completely innocent (i.e., they may have been Taliban fighters, or Arab Islamists in Afghanistan), had no high-level role and no critical information to impart. We were frightened, lazy, wanton, callous, and swaggering – all perfectly normal traits, in a war and elsewhere, but not an excuse for torture.</p>
<p>Finally, I don’t believe that this Administration committed itself to torture because people thought torture was really necessary to address a clear and present danger. I believe this Administration committed itself to torture because it had an ideological program to reject international norms such as the Geneva Convention, and to assert the paramountcy of American interests, and this – and many other things – were ways of making that concrete. It was an opportunity to establish a Big Principle, too good to miss, just like rejecting the Kyoto Treaty.</p>
<p>
What is amazing to me is that Bush orchestrated the 95-0 US Senate vote against ratifying Kyoto way back in 1997, while Clinton was still president. Even John Kerry and Ted Kennedy supported Governor Bush in his secret anti-Kyoto crusade. And yet you people still insist that Bush is stupid.</p>
<p>ff,</p>
<p>The thing is I don’t agree with what the gang of three are doing (Bush, Cheney & Rumsfield) policy wise to this country. </p>
<p>Before my state messed with voting rights I voted across the board. I still vote for the person, not the party. During the era you were unhappy with the demos held the ball, I benefited, just about everybody did. The Clinton era was responsible for creating more republicans than the gop was. Not for his politics, but for the wealth alot of people aquired. In the finanical services industry the joke was how do you make a republican? give a democrat money. </p>
<p>This administration has not brought across the board prosparity to America. </p>
<p>We have overextended our military (which I find terrribly unpatriotic by the way… never committ troops without overwhelming force) by fighting in two threaters of action without a draft to ensure victory. </p>
<p>We have overextended our economy by cutting taxes in a time of war and borrowing money from the Chinese at such a tremendous rate of debt, I begin to question the influence that debt will have upon our government and foriegn policy in future years. Will we still be Tiawaan’s ally in defense of invasion?</p>
<p>We have lost privacy rights and individual freedoms that we may never recover from. Those were fundamental rights all Americans had prior to this administration. No amount of “protection” is worth giving up the rights our parents and grandparents had. The risk reduction isn’t worth the actual price paid. </p>
<p>We have blurred the lines between church and state in such a way that freedom of choice (remember freedom of choice means you can chose no) is being taken away bit by bit by people whom think they know what is best for all of us. </p>
<p>So like you, I dislike their policies in the same way you disliked Clintons. </p>
<p>I question the current people the same way you did a decade ago. I think they will harm more Americans and for a longer period of time, than the prior administration harmed. Maybe if I were a defense contractor or an executive with HB, I’d feel differently.</p>
<p>JHS, you appear to assert that we have used torture which I assume means that you view the aggressive interrogation techniques that we have acknowledged using is torture. This is a very debatable point, but let’s get beyond that. Where I don’t follow your logic is that you claim that such technigues are ineffective. Have read the link? Have you seen how these techniques have been used to not only stop plots, thus saving lives but also used to catch other terrorists. KSM would not have been caught without the information that was gotten out of Abu Zubdayah. The information gotten from KSM and other was instrumental in stopping many plots. So, while you may have read theory that assumes the contrary, in this case, the proof is in the pudding and people are still alive that probably would not be. </p>
<p>As far as exposing our troops to torture, I’m quite certain that the two soldiers who were slowly tortured to death would very much like to have a do-over and get subjected to whatever KSM was subjected to. The terrorists will not treat our troops any differently even if we treat captured terrorist to all the ice cream that they can eat (which we probably do in Gitmo), their response will always be the same - an ugly death.</p>