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The Washington Post's Cheney-ite Defense of Torture
If anyone ever tells you that they don't understand what is meant be "stenography journalism" -- or ever insists that America is plagued by a Liberal Media -- you can show them this article from today's Washington Post and, by itself, it should clear up everything. The article's headline is "How a Detainee Became An Asset -- Sept. 11 Plotter Cooperated After Waterboarding" -- though an equally appropriate headline would be: "The Joys and Virtue of Torture -- how Dick Cheney Kept Us Safe." I defy anyone to identify a single way the article would be different if The Post had let Dick Cheney write it himself. The next time someone laments the economic collapse of the modern American newspaper, one might point out that an industry which pays three separate reporters (Peter Finn, Joby Warrick and Julie Tate) and numerous editors to churn out mindless, inane tripe like this has brought about its own demise.
Here's the essence of the article, presented -- in terms of tone, length and placement -- as a Vital New Scoop:
After enduring the CIA's harshest interrogation methods and spending more than a year in the agency's secret prisons, Khalid Sheik Mohammed stood before U.S. intelligence officers in a makeshift lecture hall, leading what they called "terrorist tutorials" . . . .
These scenes provide previously unpublicized details about the transformation of the man known to U.S. officials as KSM from an avowed and truculent enemy of the United States into what the CIA called its "preeminent source" on al-Qaeda. This reversal occurred after Mohammed was subjected to simulated drowning and prolonged sleep deprivation, among other harsh interrogation techniques. . . .
[F]or defenders of waterboarding, the evidence is clear: Mohammed cooperated, and to an extraordinary extent, only when his spirit was broken in the month after his capture March 1, 2003, as the inspector general's report and other documents released this week indicate.
Who are the Post's sources for this full-scale vindication of Dick Cheney's defense of torture? "Two sources who described the sessions, speaking on the condition of anonymity because much information about detainee confinement remains classified"'; "one former senior intelligence official said this week after being asked about the effect of waterboarding"; "one former U.S. official with detailed knowledge of how the interrogations were carried out said"; "One former agency official." It's unclear how much overlap there is in that orgy of pro-Cheney anonymity, but there is not a single on-the-record source to corroborate the Torture-Saved-us-From-Mass-Death narrative, nor is there even a shred of information about the motives or views of these "officials."
What makes the Post's breathless vindication of torture all the more journalistically corrupt is that the document on which it principally bases these claims -- the just-released 2004 CIA Inspector General Report -- provides no support whatsoever for the view that torture produced valuable intelligence, despite the fact that it was based on the claims of CIA officials themselves. Ironically, nobody has done a better job this week of demonstrating how true that is than the Post's own Greg Sargent -- who, in post after post this week -- dissected the IG Report to demonstrate that it provides no evidence for Cheney's claims that torture helped obtain valuable intelligence.
That the released documents provide no support for Cheney's claims was so patently clear that many news articles contained unusually definitive statements reporting that to be so. The New York Times reported that the documents Cheney claimed proved his case "do not refer to any specific interrogation methods and do not assess their effectiveness." ABC News noted that "the visible portions of the heavily redacted reports do not indicate whether such information was obtained as a result of controversial interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding." TPM's Zachary Roth documented that "nowhere do they suggest that that information was gleaned through torture," while The Washington Independent's Spencer Ackerman detailed that, if anything, the documents prove "that non-abusive techniques actually helped elicit some of the most important information the documents cite in defending the value of the CIA's interrogations." As Sargent reported, even Bush's loyal Terrorism adviser, Frances Fargos Townsend, admitted that the IG Report provides no basis for what the Post today is ludicrously claiming:
It's very difficult to draw a cause and effect, because it's not clear when techniques were applied vs. when that information was received. It's implicit. It seems, when you read the report, that we got the - the - the most critical information after techniques had been applied. But the report doesn't say that.
Yet The Post today publishes a long, breathless story that, in reality, does little more than claim that (a) Khalid Sheik Mohammed was subjected to "the CIA's harshest interrogation methods" (not "torture," of course) and (b) at some point after that, he provided valuable intelligence. At best, it's nothing more than a statement of obvious chronology, not causation. Nonetheless -- faithfully employing the same semantic game Cheney used to obfuscate chronology and causation, which Sargent first highlighted -- the Post loudly and unmistakably suggests that it was the torture that caused the waterfall of life-saving intelligence, and repeatedly grants anonymity to "intelligence officials" to claim this is so, notwithstanding the complete absence of any evidence for such claims and the ample evidence, as the Post's own Sargent documented, proving this to be untrue.
The debate over whether torture extracted valuable information is, in my view, a total sideshow, both because (a) it inherently begs the question of whether legal interrogation means would have extracted the same information as efficiently if not more so (exactly the same way that claims that warrantless eavesdropping uncovered valuable intelligence begs the question of whether legal eavesdropping would have done so); and (b) torture is a felony and a war crime, and we don't actually have a country (at least we're not suppoesd to) where political leaders are free to commit serious crimes and then claim afterwards that it produced good outcomes. If we want to be a country that uses torture, then we should repeal our laws which criminalize it, withdraw from treaties which ban it, and announce to the world (not that they don't already know) that, as a country, we believe torture is justifiable and just. Let's at least be honest about what we are. Let's explicitly repudiate Ronald Reagan's affirmation that "[n]o exceptional circumstances whatsoever . . . may be invoked as a justification of torture" and that "[e]ach State Party is required [] to prosecute torturers."
But sideshow or not, media outlets ought to exercise at least the most minimal amount of mental thought and skepticism before passing on baseless, anonymous claims that Torture Works and Saves Lives. It's long been clear that most of our establishment media believes in torture -- that's why there was so little outcry from them when the torture regime was implemented and why they're yet again reacting with horror over the prospect of accountability. As a result, they are now eager to argue it worked in order to justify not only what Bush officials did, but also their own complicity in it.
The Post article today is one of the most astoundingly vapid and misleading efforts yet to justify torture -- a true museum exhibit for the transformation of American journalism into little more than mindless amplifiers for those in power. It simultaeneously touts facts as new revelations that have, in fact, long been claimed (that KSM provided valuable intelligence), while deceitfully implying facts that are without any evidence whatsoever (that he did so because he was tortured). Dick Cheney couldn't have said it better himself. It's so strange how often that's true of The Liberal Media.
43 Comments so far
Show AllJesus H. Christ on a jet ski, don't these people read their own newspaper? It was the Post, among others, that reported the list of crimes to which Mohammed was supposed to have confessed, and more than a few were highly improbable. Some were plain flat impossible, and the immediate conclusion of virtually all sensible people was that some portion of those were falsehoods to stop the torture.
And, well, there's that pesky matter of the law that Glenn reiterates.
If these so-called reporters think that they weren't being punked by Cheney's gladio guys, I'd love to know why....
And this is why media monitoring and criticism is so important...if nobody challenges the lies and misinformation put out 24/7 through various media mediums, the truth could never get out there.
At some point, however, people need to get to the point of seeing the Post et al as illegitimate institutions. I would argue that for-profit news services are illegitimate. You simply can't trust someone to tell you the truth when we, as audiences, are being sold to their real customers: advertisers and the state.
Intelligence agencies have long understood the value in seeding the corporate press, and the Post is the most egregious example. Having a few reporters on staff that basically tell the truth, but are marginalized by volume, is good propaganda practice.
Greenwald's work is very valuable for those that haven't long understand the nature of state-private partnerships in disseminating propaganda. For the rest of us, it's time we create our own media for our own voices.
There are already several progressive and/or independent news services out there. Most famous among us would likely be Democracy Now!. There is also Link TV, a fully independent TV station that broadcasts DN!, AJE, documentaries, and music and cultural programs from around the world. The Center for Independent Media has started up several state-based online newspapers, such as the Washington Independent. There are also small independent radio stations around the country.
The biggest problem with media is money...it takes a buttload of money to investigate and produce news stories, and to distribute them. The New York Times reportedly spent $1 million on exposing the U.S. torture program a few years ago.
Why on Earth is anyone reading the Washington Post? That cast of prostitutes are so foul that they scare penicillin. Whores they be. Save your money don't go to the show.
Oh, come now. There are some things that whores won't do for money. I'd sooner believe the claim of a forty year old prostitute that he/she was a virgin, than anything printed/said by the us media...
Surely we have to keep up with the insider wisdom of David Broder, who might have been a thoughtful journalist 60 years ago. His constant support of the Bush/Cheney war machine has been a consistent back-handed lesson in what not to think. I doubt that that has changed.
Thank You Mr. Charles! A right wing rag cartoons have more relevant info.
Hey Glenn G., Sir, The Post you call "The Liberal Media," relative to what? ie what is more worthless, obfuscated, prideful of it's endless support of War.
Seeking info from a Media anything is stupid. We seek data by specific subject, eclectically, in real time.
But mostly just hearing the Lie reveals their motives. Shallow fools.
Peace and Serenity, may they descend upon the Post, then sleep, until the pages are just blank.....subscriptions skyrocket as stealthy visionary hippies begin writing the columns.
It's all becoming so clear now. Through the liberal media we learned Democrats are Nazis and Dick Cheney is really a progressive.
See davedubya.com for more discussion on "Who's A Nazi?"
"For the defenders of waterboarding" simply means, for the "defenders of torture." Welcome to the world of upside down thinking at the Washington Post. Who can claim that the idiots haven't taken over the asylum? To so glibly accept that your readership may think little of international law, treaties, our own laws, common decency. Maybe the Post should poll its readers to see who still believes in lynchings, segregation, and child pornography. Some of these silly laws seem a bit quaint, as well. Does the Post not realize that they are endorsing lawlessness? Is that legal?
The Washington Post is not a news paper to be read. It is to be recycled for the toilet.
How would the news be different if the government owned and controlled it? Reporters used to be heroes, and independent check on unbridled governmental propaganda.
It's not just the Washington Post. If you want news you have to turn to 9415 Free Speech TV or Grit TV, also on channel 9415. These goddamn Ken doll talking heads on the major networks are sickening. The Barbie dolls on Fox are comedy shows, while the ostensible comedy shows with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert come in a close second to 9415.
I do not wish to offend anyone, but you network news outfits have degenerated into a pack of prostitutes.
The fact that the United States tortured people and in fact murdered many detainees in the process tells us with bell-ringing clarity that we are no better than the 9/11 crew and the headchoppers. And we really have no proven or provable guarantee that we do not continue to torture and murder detainees.
We have met the enemy and become them. They won. We lost. It doesn't matter if Afghanistan and Iraq become the most docile, democratic places in the world. Bin Laden accomplished what he set out to do, and we helped him do it.
If there is any doubt that the United States has become a member of the axis of evil so roundly proclaimed by Bush and his thugs, it should be erased by the refusal of the current administration to investigate and prosecute the entire structure of torture and criminality put in place by Bush and the Republicans, enabled by the Democrats.
The news media are a joke. Perhaps we need to start laughing hard at them.
http://grumpysquirrel.wordpress.com
I don't know if it was your intention to back me up but thank you anyway.
I
Many years ago, you could deduce that the United States had an active torture program because mainstream U.S. news outlets were running apologias for torture out of the blue. In retrospect, it seems like it was a campaign to soften up the public to accept the unspeakable.
It's important to adopt an intellectual self-defense approach to reading the mainstream dailies. If you read the corporate press, read it like an official propaganda handout - worthless, but it suggests what crimes are being perpetrated by those in power.
Yesterday, I bought a copy of the Los Angeles Times from a vending machine. It was a waste of $0.75, but most of all, it was a waste of my time.
The Times used to be considered one of the most liberal dailies in the country. Billionaire Sam Zell helped kill it, but the Times was on the wane anyway.
The corporate press' staple is to run stories on sensational crimes carried out by individuals, not by corporations. You'd never know that individual violent crime has been declining in the United States for many years.
Corporate crime is another matter. We now have paid agents of Goldman Sachs running the White House.
-TIA
I sometimes wonder if the media is really at fault. I read it all the time and am able to extract what is most likely true and what is just plain garbage. But could it be that the reason the media has degenerated into the sad state of bought journalism is the ignorance of the people that read (or watch) it? I increasingly feel like the general population has less and less of an interest in actually thinking when the get their news than being spoon-fed by some giant news corporation saying "Open up the hanger, here comes the airplane!" They let the media get away with it without lifting a single finger in protest.
That said, no kudos to the media either for failing in their obligation to the people of the United States.
daamos August 29th, 2009 5:35 pm.............Obviously, the media and the people are both at fault. Who must take the greater responsibilty? I would say, the media. They CONSCIOUSLY distort and create "the truth". Americans have been de-educated from grade one. The masses have not been taught to think or reason...just obey and listen. It's part of our masters conditioning. Some have become conscious of this and have broken free and learned to think for themselves. Many citizens still believe that if it's on TV, it must be true. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard that from family members and acquaintances. My advice has always been to turn off your TV....read, write ...just think and create. Believe me, you will not miss a thing. Again, I put most of the fault on the bought and paid for media who are deceiving the public on a conscious level. Most or at least many Americans quite simply do not know any better. Many others are feigning sleep, from which they cannot or will not be awakened.
The one who is enriching himself upon the misery of the other, he is the one at fault. For the poor in the slums who got sub-prime mortgages handed to them, surely they did not enrich themselves upon the misery of the rich.
For no one makes the rich miserable and stays out of prison to brag about. The one exception being the War on Terror, the poor terrorizing the rich and we fighting a filthy war to the save the filthy rich.
I think it is ONLY the media. Our fellow citizens get their news, mostly, after a hard day's work, and they get it from the tv. When did news stop being news? How are they supposed to know? No, the people depend upon network tv to bring them the news. When this source of "news" morphs into state propaganda, when it betrays its responsibility to report, it is committing criminal fraud. Really.
abuelo, exactly!
The US, under actual control from a well disguised ruling-elite, global, corporate EMPIRE which hides behind the facade of a superbly sophisticated two-party 'Vichy' sham of democracy that would bring tears of admiration to Goebbels' eyes, has combined 'Vichy' goverment and 'Vichy' media to such an extent that average citizens have no glimpse that they are actually living in an EMPIRE.
Unlike the citizens of 'Vichy' France, most of whom had no difficulty in understanding that the occupying NAZI EMPIRE was behind and controlling their government and media, most Americans can not begin to perceive that the entire facade is a sham ---- the entire purpose of which is to keep them controlled under ELITIST EMPIRE, but without requiring the failed historical methods of empires which tried to employ overt authoritarianism (like the NAZI and Soviet EMPIRES) or the belief in the divine right of kings and overt Emperors (like the British, Roman, or Japanese EMPIRES).
The real definition of 'American exceptionalism' is that of America's ruling-elite is the first to have morphed the golden seed of democracy into the mental handcuffs of belief in a facade of democracy which serves (more softly) the purposes of a global corporatist EMPIRE without the people realizing that they have been enslaved.
And, of course, this ersatz and perverted version of super-'Vichy', super-phony democracy is what the ruling-elite global corporatist EMPIRE is now so desperately attempting to spread throughout the world, with the aid of a murderous, torturing, and unrivaled militarism ---- which the 'Vichy' President Obama is rapidly spreading from Iraq to Afghanistan, Iran, and elsewhere under his and Bush's phony banner of 'democracy projects' and 'freedom agendas'.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
Sioux Rose
ABUELO: I would add something else. When people are very overweight, they just do not have much energy. And I don't think it's coincidental, all the new faux fillers in food and the rising obesity epidemic that this nation is experiencing. I pity the children as many will incur emotional scars and a sense of rejection they may never fully overcome.
What does it cost a population to exist "on empty," and by that I mean calories devoid of actual nutrition or the remotest sense of nurture? I learned as a young mother that my temper flared on account of blood sugar changes. I dieted a lot to be thin, and I was not properly nourishing myself. It made me VERY moody, and particularly irascible in the late afternoon when the morning's coffee high crashed. I am convinced that a lot of people with mood swings are really responding to a lack of basic nourishment, perhaps a dearth of B complex vitamins. Most doctors prescribe a drug without ever examining the true CAUSATIVE factors. (I learned more about this in the book: Hypoglycemia, the disease your Doctor won't Diagnose, or a title similar, i.e. in that ballpark.)
CASSANDRA has shared much in this forum relevant to this topic. Most doctors do not even study nutrition. Our sense of diet has been largely shaped from the chart that used to be placed in elementary school classrooms featuring the four food groups. Genuine nutritionists recognize that milk and most dairy products are not intended for adult humans. And much of our produce is tainted with all kinds of toxic sludge that does NOT wash off, nor can the type now being biogenetically melded to the fiber of the plant (like soy) itself be cleansed away.
America is not a well-nourished land, and this absence of nurture is apparent in all the dysfunctions it exhibits, possibly starting with a breast (hello, Hugh) obsession.
The answer to such either-or questions regarding which group has the civic responsibility is usually: both.
Now when the people uphold their end of civic responsibility, and the elites fail to uphold their end, the question becomes what should the people do about it? Answer: continue to uphold their end while working to undermine the elite establishment.
This is why the far left promotes localism, which minimizes or eliminates the people's exchange/association with elites and elite enterprises. After building such a stake in their local communities, and releasing any stake in elite enterprises, the people have rendered the elites as ineffective and powerless as they can.
This makes it much easier for the people to continue upholding their end of civic responsibility. The society thus receives maximum benefit, despite the elite parasites on its back. The alternative is for the people to descend down the slippery slope into the fascist orgy with the elites. Not a fun prospect.
The USA has a long way to progress in the area of mass civic responsibility. Huge potential lies ahead in the people's awakening.
We all live a doomed existence and because of this must seek all pleasure and avoid all pain, as only pleasure can block the fear of emenent death.
So the takers, those who feel they deserve more, they get the needed pleasure by taking all they can take.
And the givers, those who feel they deserve less, they get their needed pleasure giving all they can give.
So it all depends on what a man feels he deserves, and what it takes to even the score. As the purpose of this world it to prove the harm in it for sure.
I won't argue with the proposition that different people derive pleasure in different ways. But a life dedicated to seeking pleasure and avoiding pain is hollow and meaningless.
Life on a higher plane is possible, where pleasure and pain are seen for what they are: transitory incidental states of being, devoid of meaning. They come and go. Neither lasts for long. Neither pleasure nor pain, neither victory nor defeat, neither wealth nor poverty have ultimate value. A life dedicated to the the desire for pleasure and the aversion to pain is the life of a jellyfish or an amoeba.
Every human must make a decision: He is given the life of an animal but to create for himself the life of a person she must decide WHAT she is going to be. If this choice is postponed indefinitely or avoided altogether, as indeed happens with most people, of course nothing matters except HER pleasure and pain. Since she cannot directly experience the life of anyone but herself, other people's pain or pleasure is a matter of profound indifference.
Everyone has what theologian Paul Tillich calls an Ultimate Concern, something for which she would give up everything else, something that is the primary consideration in every choice, however small. Many people would gladly die for their children. Dietrich Bonhoeffer went to Germany to face certain death just to stand with persons who he believed were morally superior to the Nazi's.
Consider the lives of Jesus and Socrates. Even if you believe Socrates was Quixotic or Jesus was misguided, their lives had a meaning far superior to any life based on the pleasure principle.
I won't even take the newspaper when they are giving them away--unless I'm painting something that I need to mask for over spray. I used to read them to decipher what they had in mind to brain=wash us with--but today there are many proactive sites and sources to learn the real news from.
No one one can ever know what Khalid Sheik Mohammed knows or did . not after 183 waterboardings.
Mike Lukovitch did a cartoon at the time of khalid's great "confession". It shows him on a tv screen, in his familiar rggedy shirt, and he's saying "Oh also while managing the Cincinnati Reds, I secretly bet on them"
Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death. This is what Dick Cheney and the Christo-Republicans have brought to the American people. After their plunder of our treasury we shall never be able to mend our roads and cities, keep ourselves healthy, feed our poor or educate our children. This is how these sadistic torturers claim to keep America safe! Their own overflowing money bins are the only thing that they have kept safe. Health care is part of the International Treaty on Human Rights which our government has signed and consistantly ignores. The time has come to remove the corporate tyrany under which we suffer. The time has come to form a new constitutional government without corporate personhood.
Glenn writes "It's long been clear that most of our establishment media believes in torture...."
It's also clear that almost all of our main-line churches are happy to accept the use of torture. Most of the right-wing cults that aren't main-line churches seem to glory in it.
If you let our government torture , create assination squads , lie to throw us into wars,in a coveluded thoughtless process to protect us from terrorists, who will protect us from the government if we decide to protest strongly, like a million man peace march on Washington.
Thats the point, you can not allow this kind of unconstituional criminal activity, at all, or it can be used against Americans if left to the poweres that be to justify their actions instead of obeying our laws.
Because a few bucks and a couple of favors buys a lot of TV and newspaper headlines.
I am told every day , you cant believe everything you read on the internet, well , you cant believe anything they print in newspapers or headline on TV.
" You can't believe everything you read on the internet ". True, if you read only the Drudge Report ect. But still I will take the net over any other news sources, because you can find the truth here. Most Newspapers are only good for starting fires or sometimes they make good fish wrappers, as for the rest of the whore press, they are great for brainwashing! P.
There's nothing new here guys! What about Obama? He's continuing the torture, the neo-colonialism, the banking and insurance protectionism, etc. etc.! How can an Obama administration investigate and much less indict anyone for torture? This very article is more media distraction. This country is a corporate controlled subliminal fascist state ready to go martial in a heartbeat when the dollar collapses. We're down to civil disobedience and boycott and I don't see that happening anytime soon. America's true religion, the NFL's regular season has arrived!
kerros, when one really thinks about it, the phony Obama administration policy of "looking forward and not backward on torture (and war-crimes)", to distract Americans from prosecuting the war criminals Bush and Cheney, would be as if the German people had been fooled, distracted, bamboozled, and (as Obama himself says) "oki-dokied" into allowing Hitler to peacefully retire to Crawford ---- rather than appropriately shot and burned in a bunker.
Obama's view and belief system is so clearly, "the (former) 'Vichy' Emperor (Bush) is dead. Long live and protect the new 'Vichy' Emperor (me)".
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
If he hadn't killed himself he might have served a few months at most. That's what happened to the other Nuremberg defendants.
They got severe sentences but none were carried out.
Watched Inglorious Basterds yesterday, and I can't help but imagine that in the future a director from another country will copy it, only instead of Nazis, it'll be the US being depicted.
Bring America Back !!!!
***WAPO is up to it's neck in this kind of stuff, and especially creating headline distractions to cover other,
more serious==would be headlines !
***Anytime a Vice President comes out with a public plea
advocating a torture policy as law, just as Cheney did back then, you better believe they (the spooks) are already doin'
it illegally (as they were) !
***So putting himself out on the clothesline, what was the more important issue needing distraction? Well, then King George and Team Bush were under high investigation by a Special Prosecutor for outing a CIA Agent==Valerie Plame over
issues relating to the start of an immoral, illegal War.
Making sure the High Office only took one rap of perjury by Scooter Libby was well worth admission of torture of terrorists. The day Scooter cleaned off his desk, and left the Ivory Tower, it was obvious on his face===if he ever even did one day of jail time, all the dirty laundry and closet skeletons would come out;==ergo and bingo a "W" Bush commutation of Libby's jail sentence was quickly at hand !
Scooter just took one for the team, lived happily ever after.
***Plus, getting out in front of the Torture conundrum, Team Bush could mis-direct it's Mainstream Media. The true and achieved purpose of Torture was to create Patsies==fall guys to take the blame for 9/11 !! It gained exactly that from the Kangaroo Trials at Gitmo where you had waterboarded detainees admitting to masterminding the attacks. They are also begging for martyrdom as heros, right ? Right !
***Team Bush knew it had MSM sheep like WAPO to mis=direct public attention onto the horrors of the process itself...
waterboarding, extraordinary renditions, etc, etc and away
from the Patsies it has created and exploited.
***Team Bush knew it had (and still has) a US congress and senate which would retro approve Torture--The Military Commissions Act==and later on even the retro immunities of
The FISA Warrantless & Felonious Wiretapping Surveillance legislation !!
***Sure, they'll pretend to look back at a limited and restrictive harsh interrogation inquiry, and Leon Panetta will put on his party dress, pretend to be insulted and threaten to resign if his pets are arrested !! Such Baloney !
MEANWHILE, does anybody realize there are still Wars going on in Iraq (against the will of that people), and an intensifying Afghan occupation ???? Our brand new Prez has adopted King George's MI Complex and just cannot seem to say NO !! Prez Barak just cannot look back, because when he does he sees Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and a whole host of Blue Dog Democrats who knew exactly what King George and Prince Richard were doing, and gave their approval to it !
jesus was tortured.
he saves lives.
ergo torture saves lives.
I don't find that the least bit witty.
Seems to me I remember someone saying that the Washington Post was part of Reverend Sun Yung Moon's enterprises... I know it sure ACTS like it, supporting and backing the worst of Bush and Cheney's behaviors over the past decade
What amazes me are the ill-informed comments from people regarding Obama... One of Obama's very first executive orders was to ensure that there would be no more mistreatment of prisoners and that all prisoners would be granted full protection under the Geneva Conventions.
I personally believe Obama thought the Republicans would be more cooperative with his programs if he didn't pursue prosecutions of the probably guilty parties, such as Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush.
In reality, the Republicans have continued their campaign of lies and dis-information in order to block ANYTHING we elected Obama and the Democrats to accomplish... going so far as to create fear and hatred of our president, and deliberately increasing the number of nut cases interested in assassinating him.
Death threats against the president are up 4000% since January... thanks to Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and other similar egomaniacs who shill for the drug and insurance companies and the military-industrial complex.
Even McCain admits that Cheney's torture program DEFINITELY increased recruitment by al Qaeda.
"Seems to me I remember someone saying that the Washington Post was part of Reverend Sun Yung Moon's enterprises"
That's The Washington Times, and trust me, it's awful.
First, Greenwald performs a great service by pointing out the errors and distortions in the MSM. I think he unnecessarily belabors the point that the MSM doesn't provide adequate coverage or insight. The MSM performs at a rudimentary level, focusing on simple-minded questions and answers, largely because of the low intellectual level and lack of curiosity of those who buy the products advertised. Sometimes articles and programs clearly show a right-wing bias (or even a left-wing bias, in rare instances), but mainly I think the system excludes more insightful people from reportorial and editorial positions, much as our democratic process excludes highly intelligent candidates from public office. Since we have good avenues to deeper understanding, such as Greenwald's articles, I can't get too excited about the MSM's puerility.
Second, it should be stressed that Cheney's argument (repeated today on Fox News Sunday) is, expressly or implicitly, two-fold: first, that the lawyers properly gave a green light to "enhanced interrogation techniques" such as waterboarding by claiming they're not torture, and second, that even if EIT was illegal, moral necessity justified its use. The Post article was intended to buttress the moral justification argument, and I think Greenwald effectively rebutted that.
Kevin Zeese gave a succinct answer to the legal claims in CD on May 18, 2009:
"Torture is illegal under United States and international law. It is illegal under the U.S. Constitution, domestic law and international treaties to which the United States is a party.
"This includes:
"1. The United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT), Articles 1, 2, 3 and 16 (ratified in October 1994). Article 2(2) of the Convention states that:
"'No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.'
"2. The Geneva Conventions, Article 3, (ratified in August 1955). Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 548 U.S. 557 (2006), held that the Geneva Conventions are applicable to accused members of al-Qaeda. Thus, due process protections apply to all detainees in U.S. custody, including those in military prisons.
"3. The Eighth Amendment against ‘cruel and unusual punishment.'
"4. The United States Criminal Code, Title 18, Prohibitions Against Torture (18 USC 2340A) and War Crimes (18 USC 2441).
"Torture is a clearly defined term under international and U.S. law. The Convention Against Torture defines torture as any act by which: ‘severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental; is intentionally inflicted on a person . . .'"
There are NO exceptions, morally derived or otherwise, to these prohibitions of torture. As Greenwald suggests, if we believe there should be such exceptions, they should be enacted into law. No one in the Bush administration sought to do that. Their approach was to call torture by another name (EIT), which fails to pass any smell test.
Most people who get their news exclusively from the MSM don't pay much attention to the news in the first place. Many of them, as well as the MSM news entertainers, have been bamboozled by Cheney's deceptions and confabulations. I think we need to keep plugging away at the Cheney propaganda without being judgmental toward the less informed and less intelligent citizens who have been seduced.
Third, Holder, the main target today of Cheney's continuing attacks, isn't an effective opponent. The MSM focus on Cheney v. Holder is a distraction. Cheney mentioned today that lawyers working for the Bush administration might have their licenses taken away. He didn't mention that they might go to jail. Clearly the threat of disbarment, which is the first step in Kevin Zeese's program, has already hit home, even though no one has yet been disbarred. That's an essential first step. Holder, to my knowledge, has done nothing about that.
Fourth, the problem of the statute of limitations barring prosecutions has been raised in CD but not, to my knowledge, authoritatively answered. Bush stopped the allegedly effective EIT six years ago. I'm afraid prosecutions may be barred already. Holder and other Democrats are doing things to delay the process even more. Can anyone with federal law experience address limitations?
Fifth, there's no reason I know of that at least one of the thousands of federal and state prosecutors, investigative agencies, and other law enforcement officials can't proceed with prosecutions of Bush administration officials regardless of what Holder does or doesn't do. Does anyone know any reasons to support the MSM's belief that only Holder has the power to enforce the anti-torture laws?
A Confederacy of Dunces.
Dubya said of his legacy that he didn't care about history because it has yet to be written, and "The Constitution's just a goddam piece of paper."
So is The Washington Post. So why is Dick Cheney going to such great lengths to rationalize his Administration's criminality?
Some of us wake up each morning hoping to make the world a better place. Even if only a tiny bit at a time. Don't let the bastards grind you down... He wants you to believe that opposition to torture is naive, that torture "works" when greater minds working over decades have concluded that it is innately evil, counterproductive, and against the interests of any real civilization.
Dick Cheney is a war criminal, and The Washington Post is helping to cover his fat ass. Meanwhile, for all practical purposes, Cheney's historical fate is already sealed. Obama's is not...yet.
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Thank goodness Greenwald reads the POST and I don't have to.