Hey Americans, the Pundits Blame You for Bush and Cheney's Torture Policies

I'm glad that href="http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/139989/why_the_press_is_on_suicide_watch/>THIS is happening....

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The "everyone's to blame, so no one's to blame" theory poses an extraordinary moral hazard. Clear, serious violations of US and international law, including murder, torture and kidnapping/forced disappearance, along with conspiracies, unequivocally took place, the the law places an affirmative duty on the executive branch to investigate and prosecute, a duty which Obama and Holder have repudiated. Sadly, the majority of the American people agree.

Slavery was the pre-eminent moral issue of the 19th century, women's and minority group rights in the 20th, and war crimes in the 21st. We are failing, and the rest of the world knows it. Our friends are disgusted and wary, and our enemies enraged. It's not only morally wrong, it's strategically wrong and stupid.

Surely Obama doesn't really believe that releasing pictures of abuses that everyone knows took place will incite violence against American military personnel, but his de facto amnesty for torturers and murderers will be greeted with approval.

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Then there is David Broder, Peggy Noonan :

David Broder: Eyes Wide Shut

Anybody interested in just what took place during this period is guilty, according to the apparently telepathic pundit, of "an unworthy desire for vengeance."

Why the Press Is on Suicide Watch

Don't read Frank Rich's Article! Read the Comments!

The Pundits Next Trick ... Blaming the public for failed health care reform when "Single Payer" is axed and health care costs skyrocket once again ... It'll be ... where was the public? , when discussion on single payer never shows up in the Senate hearings or in the News!

The Pundits have never been so "OWNED" by corporate influence as they are now ... To Hell With Them ...

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If we believe that we are all to blame for allowing Bush/Cheney to run rampant with their ideology, then what are we to think about what we are doing now?

The fact that we are allowing Mr. Obama to take actions to cover for the Bush/Cheney debacle is even more insulting than their misdeeds were to begin with.

Wasn't "candidate" Obama against torture? Didn't "candidate" Obama declare that the U.S. must follow it's own laws and international laws as well? Okay then, what's the deal?

I would like to think that he would have stuck to his guns on these matters, but I suppose that was really a job for Hillary! Yes, she may have been the right bitch at the right time after all!

It's simply maddening that the Obama administration has turned out to have absolutely NO BALLS whatsoever. I suppose if anyone is ever going to be held accountable for the illegal actions that the U.S. is guilty of under international laws, it will be up to the Hague and our Allies.

I hope that they take whatever steps are necessary to bring justice for those men and women our government recklessly abused and killed. It's going to be one of histories biggest ironies that we held the Nazi's accountable for their actions, telling them that "following orders" wasn't good enough to prevent them from being hanged.

Oh yeah, and giving those orders was just as bad too, at least back when we had a moral center to look out at others from.

Finally, it does come down to the public who is ultimately at fault for not pushing the prosecutions of Bush and Co. Why are we allowing these lawbreaking S.O.B.'s get away with it? If they cannot be held responsible for breaking the law, then everyone who has been convicted of a crime since Bush took over should be given a pardon--we are all equal under the law right?

Yeah, right...

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" He's left no doubt that this is what he does: ever since he was inaugurated, Obama has taken one extreme step after the next to keep concealed both the details and the evidence of Bush's crimes, including rendition, torture and warrantless eavesdropping. The ACLU's Amrit Singh -- who litigated the thus-far-successful FOIA lawsuit to compel disclosure of these photographs -- is exactly right:

The reversal is another indication of a continuance of the Bush administration policies under the Obama administration. President Obama's promise of accountability is meaningless, this is inconsistent with his promise of transparency, it violates the government's commitment to the court. People need to examine these abusive photographs, but also the government officials need to be held accountable.

John Aravosis said Obama's logic was "a bit Bushian." Steve Hynd observes that "Obama Trades Our Principles For Cheneyism." TPM decalres: "Obama falls back on Bushisms." Dan Froomkin writes: "Obama Joins the Cover-Up." I'll just note a few points for now about Obama's efforts to keep these photographs concealed:

Glenn Greenwald

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So it's all my fault! Thanks for enlightening me.

Do you want to know why I love Jesse Ventura so much? Because he pisses EVERYBODY off. The other night on Larry King Live, Jesse said, "I'll tell you what: you give me a waterboard, Dick Cheney and two hours, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders." I can top that one easily. Just give me three hours with the hideous thug and I'll have him confessing that he was part of the Lincoln Assassination conspiracy. Oh, hell; give me five hours and I'll have him saying that he framed Judas!

Ah, Dick Cheney! As the clock was counting down on the final hours of the Bush administration, I have to confess that I was feeling kind of blue. It would never again get half as weird or one tenth as entertaining as it was when Richard Bruce Cheney held center stage. I just assumed that the dirty old dingbat would slither away into that good night of ignoble obscurity and that would be that. But he didn't go away. Not only that, at a time when the GOP is desperately trying to mend its image and undo the irreparable damage that was done to it by the Bush Mob, the Dickster is in the final stages of pounding the nails into the GOP's coffin. He knows he's in big trouble and is looking at a very long stretch in federal prison. He's out there talking as loudly as he possibly can to as many interviewers he can con into letting him into their studios. It is pitifully obvious that he is trying to contaminate any potential jury pool. You think such a blatantly opportunistic ploy is beneath him? You don't know Dick.

And he is not the only member of the Cheney Klan spewing the propaganda on the media circuit. Yesterday morning, daughter Liz Cheney could be seen debating Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Eugene Robinson on MSNBC's Morning Joe - if you want to call it a "debate". Her idea of discourse was to talk loudly over whatever point Robinson tried to make in defense of his piece that had been published earlier in the day in the Washington Post - a piece which was decidedly critical of her father. That's the only way people like that know how to operate. It's the old Josef Goebbels strategy: Just keep repeating the lie over and over and over again. Eventually, the people will start to believe it. In spite of Liz's subterfuge, Gene held his own quite nicely, thank you very much. And here's to you, Mr. Robinson!

"Look, Lester! That there feller's entire respiratory system just shut down! Ain't that quaint?

Dick Cheney's Tortured Logic

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

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I have heard the US used waterboarding in the Philippines when conquering them in 1898, but I never heard about the Chinese Communists using it against US troops in the Korean war; is this an example of the kind of journalism being decried in the rest of the article?

Anybody have a credible source?

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LOL, Bush and Cheney are IDIOTS. Their Regime is long gone. Adios and good riddance!

Trish
Is your ISP watching?

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The U.S. media exists to cripple the left, and it's been doing a bang-up job for at least the last 30 years.

The modus operandi is simple. Whenever the left works up a head of steam in its partisan battles, the media steps in to say the Democrats are just as bad, or the Democrats are equally culpable, or somesuch bullsh*t. If you can't make the Republicans look good, you can at least make the Democrats look bad.

Since liberals and lefties love to attack their own leaders, they always fall for it. There's hardly a thread at AlterNet in which someone doesn't pop in and begin prattling about how the Democrats are really just the same as the Repubs and blah-de-blah-de-blah.

These people would flunk a simple quiz on Democratic accomplishments. But never mind.

Libertarians, conspiracy theorists, anti-government loonies, and a goodly number of progressives are willing to carry water for the corporate media in this way. It suits their purposes to badmouth Democrats--and they don't mind using the corporate media to do it.

One expects this sort of behavior from libertarians and conspiracy folks, but it is most disheartening to see progressives doing it. A glance at Democratic Underground or Huffington Post makes it plain as day: no one hates Democrats more than progressives do.

During the primaries, many of the prog blogs turned into anti-Clinton smearfests, making full use of hoary old right-wing smears from the 90s.

It was at this point I realized that, despite appearances, the Democrats are screwed. We cannot succeed if our politics are based on hatred of Democrats.

Be that as it may, the Dems are in the ascendance, and gaining a lot of momentum with the torture issue--so the media has altered its strategy and started spreading the blame to all of us, obscuring the obvious fact that the political right are degenerate traitors, and the political left are not.


Xe Technology: We Mean Very Little Harm to your Planet

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Anyone with a sense of moral outrage, integrity, and principles--A belief in the sanctity of human life should cancel their subscriptions to the paper, halt buying it, and stage protests against the paper. These people well understand the maxim--Repeat the lie (torture is good)until it becomes the truth. I am disgusted at the place MSM has gone over the edge into the "Dark" and sold us out. I am appalled at where we have gone as a country.

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Anyone with a sense of moral outrage, integrity, and principles--A belief in the sanctity of human life should cancel their subscriptions to the paper, halt buying it, and stage protests against the paper. These people well understand the maxim--Repeat the lie (torture is good)until it becomes the truth. I am disgusted at the place MSM has gone over the edge into the "Dark" and sold us out. I am appalled at where we have gone as a country.

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how about giving me a real seat at the table. I'm not for sale.

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THEIR CLAIM "everyone knew" IS HORSESHIT. ONLY NOW, THAT THEY ARE RUNNING FOR THEIR LIVES ARE THEY TRYING TO BRING IT OUT INTO THE OPEN. People responsible for torture or who knew but did nothing to stop it must be executed or put away for life. This is a cancer growing within our nation.

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The only way we the people can win over this Media lethargy is to keep up the pressure.

The best way to get President Obama to allow AG Holder to appoint a Special Prosecutor for the Bush Torture Lawyers is to Put a lot of Pressure on Both Of Them

Sign the Petition Calling for a Special Prosecutor

http://ANGRYVOTERS.ORG

250,00 signed so far
Join Us and share this url with friends & Groups

.

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they Love the lie and hollywood reinforces it w/scripts and characters do sustain the myths & manipulations.

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...was the smell. Indeed, it was such a stench that Germans certainly knew what was going on. If only the defendants at Nuremburg had been better served by leakers, if they could have demonstrated that everybody knew what was going on, then they wouldn't have had to fall on the weak "I was only following orders" defense, and could have taken advantage of the much stronger "everybody knew about it" defense.

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I did not acquiesce to any form of torture, I did indeed fax my concerns and explicit poetry of the inhumanity of torture to my senators, and tried to reach the white house, and did write in to the local news papers. That my words did not appear in the manipulated mainstream media does not negate my perspective, it merely underlines the problem that we have in this country that the people who are being paid to represent the truth are drinking the coolaid that has been served to them by those running the game. They see only what they want to see. There is no objective reporting, and no representational government.

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When Republicans complain about the liberal media, think why is the media so conservative?

When Republican complain about big government and reckless spending Democrats, ask yourself just what Republicans are doing to the size of government and just how are they spending?

Psychologists have a name for the phenomena of blaming others for one's own worst faults and it is called projection. If you think back over the last few years you can probably come up with quite a few examples of it. People who complain loudly about the failures of others are particularly likely candidates.

When the media says everyone else is to blame for America's wars and torture, ask yourself what the role of the mainstream media was in bringing us this mess.

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we wouldn't need to hide in the rule of law. This torture debate is giving us the scar tissue we need to face the future and preparing us to eat our young.

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The press; especially news pundits have no true opinion of thier own. They're only after the slant of the message that will garner them the most viewers. Which makes whatever they say about this situation completely worthless.

I really don't give a shit what they think.

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Everything you say can and will be held against you in a court of LAW.
It may have to be a foreign court since our "leaders" think TORTURE is like smacking a school child over the wrist with a ruler, but I'm sure it will happen. Treaties our "leaders" signed are LEGALLY BINDING no matter what you'd like to make people believe.
You better just stay in your bunker because those foreigners can and will force your plane to divert in order to put you in their custody. Not one of them signed off on the notion that you and George and the rest could go by your own rules as the "vaulted leaders of the U.S. of A.". None of them put you in a position of being above all laws of the world.
You have ADMITTED to, and BRAGGED and exhaulted your PRIDE in ORDERING and Condoning and LOVING torture, lies, war crimes, profiteering, and implimenting all your accomplices. Bet Georgie is looking for his own bunker about now. Gonna have to be really BIG to hold all HIS accomplices. While you did manage to not speak UNDER OATH and you all tried to cover for each other, the fact is you have lied so much about so many different things that you've left a trail you will never be able to completely erase.
And you know all those e-mails you destroyed? Well the number of copies still in existence out there in the nether is existential to the number of people trading them and MANY will come back up to haunt YOU, just like YOU popping out of your bunker and appearing on air 24/7 after 8 years in hiding HAUNTS the rest of us.
Keep talking, Dick. Keep digging your own grave. If we AND the WORLD are lucky and there's ANY JUSTICE whatsoever, we may YET get to see YOU in the town square in DC with a noose around YOUR neck just like your, not as evil as YOU, twin, Saddam Husein in the middle of Bagdad. Between YOU and HIM there is NO DIFFERENCE. NO DIFFERENCE! Other than the NAMES of the PEOPLE YOU KILLED, TORTURED, SENT TO SLAUGHTER ON A LIE, NO DIFFERENCE.

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I don’t know, would you call that politically incorrect?”

When I first started coming out of the closet a boy scout leader built my house all wrong, that was just the beginning of them torturing me and my family...

I know they they don't intend to suffer me to live. What should I do about it?

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Nothing new. I had a big brother who behaved similarly.

The article lead me to think about the reasons the media want to form a perception in this way. To allow Yoo a place to use his influence against the fabric of our constitution is despicable and indicative of the problems with the current political reality. Unless you want to 'pre-condition' people to accept future events there is little reason to promote such a way of looking at life.

I guess the key is that everything that happens in society on the world stage, happens with the dollar as the lubricant in the gears.

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The real reason they wanted to torture these guys was not to extract useful information since every real interrogator knows it's counterproductive and elicits false confessions. They WANTED false confessions to sell their dirty little war and raise their false terror alerts. They also wanted to establish the precedent of torturing outsiders so they would be able to torture US. It's all about maintaining their power, wealth and influence while they betray the United States Citizenry. This way they CAN torture any US citizen who steps out of line and maintain fear among us.

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We did not let the German and Japanese people off the hook for the concentration camps in their neighborhoods and the behavior of their leaders and we shouldn't let ourselves off the hook either. The German and Japanese leaders were hung and our leaders should be prosecuted. The fact that the American people knew Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rise, etc. were war criminals hardly lets them off the hook. Failing to prosecute - jail and even execute these people - will be the bigger blot on our History than failing to rise up and throw the bums in jail at the time they were committing their crimes.

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We only become complicit when we go along knowing the full story, which we now do! When all this happened, we'd been misled and falsely convinced that we were on the brink of a nuclear catastrophe....not that we should EVER go along with torture! To look the other way now WOULD be to 'go along' and be complicit with full knowledge...to be equally guilty! Neither is good, but which is worse?

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So we're all guilty of torture "by association" since, although not directly involved, we all knew about it.

OK, I'll buy that. So let's punish the hell out of those who were directly involved and we can all suffer that punishment "by association" as well.

That ought to work.

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The Lefts Appeasing the Right by entertaining the Notion we have the Right to prosecute these War Crimes within our own system. They system IS ON TRIAL Folks!Every facet of our Democratic process has been implicated- From boot camp training to the Office of the Commander in Chief, From the Bar Association to SCOTUS, From the Ballot box to the Floors of Congress.
We lost the Right to prosecute Torture when they tortured a non citizen.We lost the right to prosecute for Rendition when they crossed national borders to kidnap a foreigner. We lost the Right to prosecute for heinous crimes when they contracted out use of Black Prisons in nations which regularly use torture. WE lost the right to prosecute for Hit squads when they very likely assasinated foreigners on foreign soil.
The Only thing We are rightfully allowed to prosecute are those acts of Abuse of Power and Treason, which facilitated the ability to commit War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity (blood for Oil). Cheney ,Rummy and Wolfie Want you, first, to be so blood thirsty enough that you are distracted by the small fish prosecutions.Second if actually held accountable themselves, They also WANT to be prosecuted here for Torture because they have aptly obscured the subject- enough grey now exists to provide reasonable doubt. Further if they are prosecuted here because there is no doubt they will not be executed.In fact they are guaranteed cozy accomadations by the Corps who now run our prison system.They'll be afforded all the comforts of home and protective custody,their own private Cell block.
Far better to hand these war crimes over to the internationals to prosecute and allow them the sentence/punish and ,if need be, imprison.
Hand this shit over to the Swiss, and any other countries who have no direct ties to any of the players in this 'War of Terror'

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The pundits are correct. After World War II the German people claimed they had no idea the extermination camps existed and they had no knowledge that Jews were being deported to concentration camps.

It was not an acceptable excuse then and it is not an acceptable excuse for the American people either.

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These criminals tortured innocent people in order to extract false confessions about involvement in the events of 9/11. They felt the more false connfessions they obtained the further they could distance themselves, in the eyes of the American public, from their own involvement in 9/11, an obvious inside job.

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Anyone who imagines that mainstream media such as Newsweek is actually "liberal" has been asleep for the past 30-some years.

Geez, folks, get over believing everything you are told! Compared to the pre-Reagan news media, today's mainstream "news" media is solidly conservative, and no more objective than Pravda was under Soviet control. I don't care about political slants of particular publications per se, but what distresses me is the amount of vital information that today's
conservative "news" media refuses to publish.

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is NOT what crimes Bush/Cheney committed while spending eight years in office, but ALLOWING these repugnant CHICKENHAWKS to ever get there in the first place. We should have never accepted their open thievery of the Presidency in 2000, and certainly not AGAIN in 2004! These two elections were utterly BOGUS and everyone knows it!

Now, look at the MESS we are going to have to clean up as a result.

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They manipulated and lied to us and they tortured innocent people after invading the wrong country - And they are still in there killing people for oil and we are paying for it. Torture is immoral and wrong and it has not made us safer, it has created more hate towards us , IT DOESN'T WORK and thats what they like so they can have an excuse to continue these fabricated wars at a huge expense to us and profit to them. But as long as we sit on our sorry asses and dont speak up and protest and kick out conservatives we, in my opinion, are a nation that has lost its moral center and are a lazy bunch who just doesn't want to take the time to even make a phone call. Just imgaine if another nation did to us what we have done to Iraq! And beyond torture they are depriving the American people of affordable healthcare for everyone and because of this people are dying, suffering and struggling to pay as they give Wall St and the military trillions. Tens of millions of people are homeless and have lost their jobs and are left to just die in the gutter and this too is a form of torture! There is also such a thing as economic terrorism. So they are screwing the Iraqis and us in many ways and the American people are not doing enough because we are a broken nation and we are going down because people don't have what it took in the 60's to fight for what is right and fight for there own survival. Every freedom and right we had was because people fought and died for them but we just let them get away with the Patriot act and let them wire tap all of our phones. We roll over and do nothing and we will pay for it as we are. So now we let them get away with torture too, after lying about Iraq in the first place and now we pay 10 billion per week so they can rip us off and use the bail out money to bribe congress while not lending because they have made us too poor! And now we are going to sit back and let those scum bags get away with all of the above + torture? We have become a pathtic people! SO CALL YOU REP AT THE VERY LEAST AND TELL THEM YOU ARE AGAINST TORTURE AND WANT THE PEOPLE WHO DID THIS HELD REPSONSIBLE!!!!!!!!! WE NEED TO REGAIN OUR MORAL GROUND AS A NATION OR THEY WILL WIN AND WE WILL BECOME A POORER AND POORER AS WE ARE AND AN IMMORAL NATION WITH A PEOPLE WHO HAVE NO BACKBONE.

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The idea that we are all to blame for the torture committed by the Bush/Cheney crime syndicate, just because we knew about it, is the same kind of thinking that refuses to prosecute rape on the basis of a victim's clothing or any other flimsy excuse. If a rape victim knows what is happening while it is still going on, that makes her (or him) complicit in the act!

Many of us did know about and deplore the Bush administration's torture tactics, but that administration was also notorious for its complete disregard of the rule of law in general and of any feeble attempt by our cowed Congress to discuss some day maybe trying to put a stop to it, perhaps. Many people protested, only to be almost entirely ignored by the mainstream media.

Not that I expect anything of an idiot like Thomas Friedman, but how much farther are our celebrity-addled media willing to go in absolving anyone in power of any wrongdoing, no matter the circumstances? I'm not sure I want to know the answer.

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take on the Bushco/neo-con/PNAC group? Smart enough, sneaky enough, invisible enough to survive it? We are having a case of rubbing our noses in the violent messes they left and no one is standing up to them. We people out in the nation don't count because our influence amounts to zero. Nope, it's gotta be either en masse boycotts and demonstrations or a powerful invincible person or group yelling in a big powerful voice, "ENOUGH". Kinda like President Obama's voice was in the campaign.

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none of them directly involving intelligence-gathering.

1. Humiliate, shame, and terrorize your enemy.
2. Blackmail your enemy (by circulating naked pictures in his old neighborhood, etc).
3. Create new spies (by torturing, then threatening to torture aaain).
4. Create distrust among enemies (once released a torture prisoner will be treated with suspicion by former comrades).
5. Slake the sadistic and power-hungry urges of the torturer (an old standby), especially with unaccountable contractors - who knows who these sociopaths really are or what they are doing with our money and our "good" name?).
6. CHANGE THE DEBATE and scare the hell out of your own people. This purpose has now been successfully achieved. We are actually having a national debate on torture. What's next? A national debate on rape ("Rape - Bad Policy or Necessary Evil?"). Perhaps we should re-consider genocide ("The Indians - On the Way out Anyway. Shouldn't we Help?). Hell, slavery wasn't that bad, was it? ("The Middle Passage Reconsidered - Crime Against Humanity or Voyage to Prosperity?").

Then there is crucifixion. Worked for the Romans, didn't it? And hey! Nobody went back and punished Pontius Pilate, so why should we prosecute our torturers. After all, "We're an empire now. We create our own reality!")

Oh, wait a minute...

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Who "acquiesed"? I was right there in the beginning (like millions of Americans), protesting mightily and vociferously about the illegal war in Iraq and the ham-fisted Bush/Cheney approach to their self-created "war on terror". Listen, Friedman, et al, don't pin this on me or the rest of America. Bush/Cheney/Rice/Powell/Rumsfeld et al are war criminals, murderers, traitors. They should be arrested, brought before an international tribunal and tried before the world for their egregious crimes against humanity. Hopefully, they would be found guilty. I would then make certain that I was the first in line if their punishment was the firing squad and volunteers were needed. On second thought, perhaps a little torture applied every day for the rest of their lives might be a better idea. Let them suffer like the hundreds of thousands of people who are the victims of the Bush/Cheney deception. It's only just and fair.

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FYI: The Atlantic Monthly was never (in the author's phrase) "august." Like its twin, Harper's, the AM was at its best white, bourgeois "neoliberalism."

In the 9/11 aftermath the official US was like a wounded giant striking out crazily. Wherever you lived in the US, if you had a dark complexion, no matter your religious or political affiliations, you were likely to be considered a Muslim "terrorist" and assaulted.

That mind-set was officially amplified, as witnessed by the convenient alignment of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Iran.

Meanwhile protesters (mostly young) were unrepresented or lied about. Rumors of torture were sternly denied. And ethical dissenters were in constant danger of losing their jobs or worse.

It is actually cruel media savants like Thomas Friedman who were in the loop and who need to be confronted.

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"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
George Santayana

To paraphrase Santayana's quote, "those who do not KNOW about the past are condemned to repeat it." That sums up why we need to know about the torture rationale so that we do NOT repeat it in the future!

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Osama bin Laden is getting stale playing the part of Immanuel Goldstein, we need someone to play the part better than him, someone more internal to our structure, a real traitor, someone that the Outer Party REALLY HATES, someone, hmmmm, like, like Cheney!

...Yes, that's it! He's perfect, the perfect subject for the TWO MINUTE HATES! Bush is not vile enough, too folksy, plenty of people still relate to him as an incompetent Cowboyesque Sub-hero...no, we MUST have Cheney!

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When the first photos came out from Abu Graib (sorry if the spelling is wrong), the official line was that the atrocities were performed by just "a few bad apples," and that the practices of humiliation and mistreatment were not US policy. I heard this over and over again, although I did not believe it at the time.

The notion that "we all knew" is only partly true. "We" might have "known," but we were consistently lied to by the press, the administration, and the military. We were told that we absolutely do not torture. Period. We were most definitely not told that we torture because it works or that we torture to protect America. No. No. No. We were told that WE. DO. NOT. TORTURE.

As far as "our" complicity in the torture, it is not true, either, that no one protested. Many Americans did speak up, and when we did, we were told many times that the orders to subject prisoners to extreme punishment did not come from the top.

There were leftwing and progressive websites, a few media personalities, and many blogs that attempted to expose the horrendous conditions in the so-called terrorist prisons, but they were shouted down by the mainstream and the administration. In fact, we were called traitors and unAmerican for our failure to follow the leader.

It's analogous to blaming the American public for "allowing" the invasion of Iraq. I don't know about you other readers, but I went to D.C. three times for protest marches, along with several local ones. I wrote to my local newspaper, and I wrote to my representatives and senators (Robert Byrd already opposed the war), and I also talked about it to everyone I know - including many people who were aghast at my opposition. I am not alone, because I was not alone at these events or in writing.

None of this did any good. I suppose I could have gone on a hunger strike, camped out on the lawn of the White House, or driven to Texas... Oh. Right. I do believe Cindy Sheehan actually did to that, along with many others.

What makes anyone think there was anything we could have done to stop the torture? For that matter, it's hard to imagine that there was anything the German people could have done to stop the Nazis, either. And we might not respect their turning away, but we also did not prosecute German citizens for their apathy. Fighting the powers-that-be is a lot harder up close than we like to imagine from a distance.

So, please, would someone mind explaining to me again why this is my fault and in what way I am complicit?

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If "enhanced interrogation techniques" are sound why aren't these journalists advocating that such techniques be used on corporate bankers? We need to obtain intelligence on where all that bailout money went.

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To paraphrase Rap Brown: "Torture is as American as cherry pie and dear old mom." It's been going on since the very beginning of our country. Ever since Ben Franklin distributed small pox infected blankets to the Indians. Mark Twain spoke of water boarding a hundred years ago during the war against the Filipinos. I wrote extensively on torture in Vietnam. I saw it first hand as a refugee advisor. Publishers, editors, literary advisors wanted no part of the book. Wouldn't look at it. "Americans do not want to know unpleasant truths about America."

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An inconvenient truth for both major political parties is that torture has been going on for a long, long time. In the graphic at the top of the article, they picture 3 basic "techniques": sensory depravation, humiliation, and stress positions.

Lynndie England did not think these up herself. Nor did Bush and Cheney. Before I get attacked for pointing it out- I *absolutely* believe that Bush and Cheney should be prosecuted for their role in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo practices. But it is, I regret to say, a Democrat fairy tale that these policies are new with Bush and Cheney. And I think the smarter Democrats know it, which is why there is foot-dragging on torture investigations.

KUBARK Interrogation Manual from 1963

Where did stress positions, sensory depravation, and humiliation come from? In the 1940s, the CIA approached Canadian psychologist Donald Hebb. At the time, he was one of the leading psychologists in the world. They asked him, essentially, "How do you break someone's will during interrogation?" He had a whole line of research dedicated to this question. It was Donald Hebb who really laid the foundation for the "techniques" we see used in Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere.

He suggested 3 main points:
1) sensory depravation and disorientation
2) utilize a person's natural fears
3) make the person believe that their pain is their own fault

If you take those 3 points, you can see how they played out in Abu Ghraib, for example:
1) bags/ hoods over prisoners' heads, and sleep deprivation
2) use of dogs in interrogation, or sexual humiliation which is quite a big deal in Arab cultures
3) stress positions.

So, for example, that famous photograph of the prisoner at Abu Ghraib is having all 3 basic techniques used on him. He has a hood over his head, and he was told that if he puts his arms down, the wires will shock him. This both utilizes a natural fear of getting shocked and it makes the pain "his own fault" in the sense that it hurts for him to hold his arms like that, but he keeps doing it.

You can read the 1963 KUBARK (CIA) Interrogation Techniques Manual, which, thanks to Ralph Nader's Freedom Of Information Act, has now been declassified. It says pretty much the same things about what techniques to use.

The idea that Bush is an anomaly- that he is the first president to use torture- is false.

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Our government has gotten so big, so entrenched, and so rotten, I feel powerless to do anything. Voting 3rd party doesn't help; voting Repubs out and putting Dims in doesn't change anything...I don't think killing them all would really change things because there is such a force behind them: the bankers, the corporations, misguided Americans who really think voting Democrat or Republican somehow makes everything all right...I feel that all I can do is try to live the best I can in a little rural area and not call too much attention to myself or they'll consider me a political problem and jail me. I used to wonder what it would be like to live in the Soviet Union. Now I know.

And by the way, Bush and Cheney call it "waterboarding" but what it really is is that they DROWN the person and then resuscitate him. If that's not torture, I dare anyone who thinks drowning isn't torture to undergo it a few times.

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My Lai was a small Vietnamese village that US soldiers (with the blessings & orders of their officers) opened fire on, intent on killing everything in it, including toddlers and babies. Hugh Thompson, a helicopter pilot, and his 2 man crew stopped the soldiers at gun point from finishing off everyone in the village. Yes, the soldiers were stressed out, and they had seen many of their comrades killed by Viet Cong, but the civilians in these little villages were between a rock and a hard place during all of the undeclared Viet Nam war. If they helped the Americans, the Viet Cong came after them; if they helped the Viet Cong, they got attacked by the US. The point I'm making is that civilians are usually innocent of whatever their government or their army is doing, and quite often they are caught in the middle. Hugh Thompson was spit upon when he came back to the USA--for being brave and trying to save innocent lives. The people who spit on Hugh Thompson are what some of us in the USA are...not all, but some. And the people who spit on Hugh are the ones who say torture is okay and then go to church on Sunday and sing the loudest.

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all CITIZENS

are responsible for the actions of their representative government

if you DON'T BELIEVE THAT

then you aren't a participating member of your government & society.

PERIOD.

sorry, but if you wanna tell the World that YOU run it...

you'd better be prepared for the consequences when YOU ABUSE THE REST OF US for fun & profit.

you just like PROFITING from the abuses, not taking responsibility for it?

well, isn't that just the STATUS QUO...

never seen the US do THAT before!

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Let's Get Real

First, [b]I think it is just plain dumb to care so much about what happens to good for nothings that are guilty with respect horrible crimes. NOW WHEN WILL ATTENTION BE GIVEN WHERE IT BELONGS? To wit, to their unfortunate victims?[/b]

Let’s get real, the only thing that really matters was whether their treatment was effective or not which I do not know. That is the question that should be asked of officials of the Bush administration.

Second, Many try to cover up the terrible wrongs committed by members of this crime against humanity - 9/11/2001 - by this evil and wicked organization - Al Queida under the direction of Muslim religious leader Sheik Osama (Usama) bin Ladin. This cover-up is of course by evil groups and individuals that sympathize with their evil and wicked ways. For details, go to:

CONSPIRACY THEORIES THE BANE OF TRUTH

Click Here

Third, Individuals and groups that light the proverbial fuse are responsible for all that follows including what happens to them. For details, go to:

Sponsors of Unprovoked Attacks and Criminal Acts Responsible For All That Occurs:

Click Here

And,

The Sponsors of Unprovoked Attacks and Criminal Acts Responsible For All That Occurs: the Palestine situation in Gaza.

Click Here

Fourth, Groups responsible for removing peace from the world should be dissolved. Wars should be eliminated and at present one religion is responsible for over 90% of the violence on earth as pointed out by an Australian newspaper as follows:

"Did you know that 90-95% of the conflicts in the world today are Muslims fighting non-muslims or each other? " [source - The Weekend Australian, November 26-27, 2005 AD]"

I am getting very tired of hearing Palestinians and other Ishmaelite crying crocodile tears and always trying to put the blame for what they do on others such as their conspiracy weavers tried to do about who did 9/11/2001 attack on the World Trade Center, etc. Screaming against what they call wrongful occupations when they are guilty of occupying Byzantine territory, Palestine which belongs to the Israelites [see Numbers the 34 th. Chapter in any Bible for proof of this, and their outright greed as they have over 98% of the Middle East, but still greedly want the less than 2% belonging to their sister tribe Israel] - its time we get real and put an end to this so the world can stop experiencing continuous Ishmaelite induced strife such as shooting rockets at Israel.

Solution, dissolve this false religion and rid the earth of at least 90% of the violence. But of course the politicians will not do what is needed since as Jeremiah 10:23 says, "O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." (Authorized King James Bible; AV). To read detailed information, go to the following article:

When Should A Religion Be Dissolved In The Interest Of World Peace?

Click Here

Along with many other useful articles.

Iris89

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During your campaign you can pretty much say what you want and talk about ideals. Once in office it is a lot harder to make those things happen. There is a whole administrative infrastructure and powerful opposition to deal with. He gets advice from many people. His perspective changes as he sorts this information. If he allows a full-fledged investigation of the previous administration's illegal actions, it would severely undermine his presidency. His agenda would not move forward. It could destroy his presidency. President Obama should be given the opportunity to proceed and successfully bring about his policy changes for health, education and fair taxes.

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I enjoyed reading this article, but I must disagree with your conclusion that hiring Yoo is the same as promoting or agreeing with Yoo's memos or U.S. government alleged human rights violations. I believe the Inquirer hired Yoo because of his notoriety and the controversy. He's sexy right now. Sex sells.

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Not gonna buy any thing from the pundits. I knew the big guys were lying from the git go. When they started to make a big thing about "we don't torture' it made me sick at my stomach, because I knew the truth then.

And I wrote letters to everybody, politicians, editors, made phone calls, signed petitions, demonstrated in the streets and the halls of power. I still do all that, and will do more until we have peace and freedom.

I was against bombing Afghanistan after 9/11 and knew they didn't want to catch their friend Obama, because he is such a useful bogeyman.

The way to get perps is through persistant intelligence and leg work. But that isn't attractive to the sofa soldiers. They want explosions and soldiers walking into the sunset so bravely. But not themselves, and preferrably not their kids. Although, if they run out of other people's kids to eat, they will eat their own.

This country was born in revolution and we are in a revolting situation. This time we must be nonviolent. But that takes determination, persistance, and great courage. Get all your friends and neighbors to act. Call, write, and to all the legislators and the President. Stop access to war businesses. Buy from peoplle you know and buy local.

Use only what you need. Don't need much. Be smart, be kind,be brave, and be peaceful. We can make the world a better place by making the places around us free.

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No one has offered to waterboard Mr. Cheney and Mr. Yoo on live television. Maybe they should volunteer to be waterboarded, since they are such advocates of the practice.

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Hi Everyone

Many lies have been told about me by liars and bigots and I have even been falsely accused of loving Israel by some posters, BUT THE REALITY IS QUITE DIFFERENT. One poster even said,

“Most of the conflicts in the world TODAY are being caused the by US interventionalism. Maybe you should torture yourself!”

To which I replied,

“WRONG - most of the conflicts in the world today are caused by false religion, consider the following:

Wars should be eliminated and at present one religion is responsible for over 90% of the violence on earth as pointed out by an Australian newspaper as follows:

"Did you know that 90-95% of the conflicts in the world today are Muslims fighting non-muslims or each other? " [source - The Weekend Australian, November 26-27, 2005 AD]"

Take for example Iraq and Afghanistan, both were the result of a Muslim religious leader lighting the proverbial fuse by maliciously destroying the World Trade Center and the damaging of a large building in Washington, DC, and the murder of over 3,000 on 9/11/2001.

Just look around yourself in the world at what happened in Mumbai, India; southern Thailand; the London subway/bus bombing; southern Philippians’; the train bombing in Spain; the attempted attack in Germany; etc.; the Mufti approved rapes in Australia where he referred to young Christian girls as ‘cat meat’; do not stay in your self imposed cocoon!

To assist you and all others in knowing the truth, I have set up an educational forum where facts are presented so all can learn reality. Now go to:

http://religioustruths.proboards59.com/

An Educational Referral Forum for those objective individuals that are interested in the truth and NOT bigoted none objective ‘crappola.’

I CHALLENGE YOU OR ANYONE ELSE TO SHOW A SINGLE FACTUAL ERROR IN ANY OF MY RESEARCH PRODUCTS AND/OR ARTICLES.”

NOW I HOLD THE SAME CHALLENGE OUT TO ONE AND ALL! Let’s start accepting the facts and being objective instead of being none objective and closed minded. I am just the bearer of the truth, the facts, NOT the maker of the facts! I am just a messenger of the truth which all should want if they are honest with them selves in keeping with John 8:32, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (Authorized King James Bible; AV) .

Iris89

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