You guys stop using the words Nazi, Pol Pot, and the like when discussing our soldiers, even if a small group of them may have done wrong, and we’ll do something in return. Like let you win a national election in the next 40 years.
Idiots.
*** Update ***
No, I don’t think Durbin called our troops Nazi’s. But you don’t have to worship at the alter of political correctness or be some jingoist idiot to think that using the term Nazi and America in a comparison is offensive, no matter what.
And, I might add, all it does is queer the debate. Instead of discussing long-term options for Gitmo (and no, I don’t know what to do with the detainees, either), all the partisans on the left are now explaing that while not quite Nazi’s, our behavior is Nazi-ish, and all the partisans on the right are now linking to the Gitmo cookbook or pictures of Buchenwald.
Thanks for elevating the debate, Dick.
Anderson
Here’s a counteroffer:
When the Republican Party’s officeholders stop encouraging and tolerating the use of Nazi-style interrogation tactics, we’ll stop using the word “Nazi.”
Apparently we’re allowed to act like Nazis without having to bear the opprobrium, because we’re Americans, and Americans can’t be like Nazis?
Great. America is torturing and murdering its prisoners, and you want to gripe about labels.
jacitelli
“Nazi-style interrogation tactics”
Are you kidding me? Do you know anything about Nazi interrogation tactics? If you did, this comment wouldn’t be plausible.
John,
You want to know why there will never be a truce? Because these people are strarting to believe their own overblown hyperbole.
washerdreyer
John, can you please explain what is wrong with saying that certain actions sound more like things that Nazis would do than things that American soldiers would do?
Also, the rule you suggest above would forbid saying things like, “Our soldiers aren’t anything like the Nazis or Pol Pot.”
Durbin seems, at least to me, very sincere in his anti-torture/abusive interrogation/ what have you positions. He is clearly not anti-military (you don’t say he is, but just to be certain), as any research into him would show.
Katherine
1) it’s not actually clear whether it was U.S. soldiers, CIA forces, or contractors. But that’s a quibble.
2) Here’s the real problem: the idea that certain words must not be used, regardless of what they are actually used to say, is the sort of political correctness that I thought libertarian style conservatives were the first ones to reject.
3) What Senator Durbin said was, if I read you a description of this treatment and did not tell you its source, you would think it was describing the actions of a totalitarian regime like Pol Pot or Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia, and not the United States.
He was not saying that the U.S. military is equivalent to those regimes. He was saying that it is VERY DIFFERENT, so different that he would have imagined those images to describe those regimes and not those interrogators. There can’t be any reasonable debate on Durbin’s comments if you don’t acknowledge what he actually said.
4) Is what he said accurate? Not as concerns the rap music, but that’s a trivial detail. The part about chaining the prisoners to floor in their own excrement? Yes, I would have expected that to describe a totalitarian regime and not the United States. There are of course many more regimes that have done that sort of thing than Stalinist Russia, Nazi Germany, and Pol Pot’s Cambodia, but did those countries use those tactics, and are they more typical of those countries than the United States? Yes. Yes, they are.
Were they the worst things those countries did? No, not even close. Has the United States abused as many prisoners as those countries? No, not even close. Did Durbin claim either of those things? No, he did not. Did he even imply either of those things? No, he did not.
4) He have gotten the same point across in a way that would not leave himself open to these misunderstandings or misrepresentations? Yes, absolutely.
Was it stupid of him to phrase it this way? It depends.
If he was trying to advance his own electoral prospects, his own power, his own chance of becoming majority leader, it was completely idiotic.
I don’t think that’s what he was trying to do.
If he was desparate to get the Senate to address this issue, and desparate to get the press to pay attention to it? Maybe not so idiotic. Durbin has been speaking about the torture issue for a year now, been sponsoring amendments and bills to stop it over and over again, has made measured and eloquent speeches that are very hard to argue with. This is the first time the press & his Senate colleagues have paid any attention. The attention is almost all negative, as far as he goes, but as far as the issue goes, it might not be. The same people who denounce Durbin on the right, or distance themselves from him on the left, may try to also try to prove their anti-torture bona fides hoping to play both sides of the issue–sort of the way that gay marriage has engendered a ferocious backlash and a lot of hate, but also increased support for anti-discrimination laws, hate crime laws, civil unions, an end to ban on gays in the military. People want to be able to begin their condemnations of gay marriage with “I’m not homophobic but…” I think Durbin is hoping that some people will want to begin their condemnations of his speech with “I oppose torture and we should investigate Guantanamo but….”
Is that idiotic? Maybe, but lots of politicians are idiotic. Not so many are idiotic in such a good cause, against their own self-interest.
Halffasthero
I agree with Katherine. Sen. Durbin is being taken entirely out of context – and deliberately I might add. We are the United States and I would like to thik that our code of conduct should be beyond reapproach. That is not the same as not being allowed to question our conduct. I read his quote in detail and it was entirely in line.
John Cole
He have gotten the same point across in a way that would not leave himself open to these misunderstandings or misrepresentations? Yes, absolutely.
Was it stupid of him to phrase it this way? It depends.
If he was trying to advance his own electoral prospects, his own power, his own chance of becoming majority leader, it was completely idiotic.
Umm. My point. I am not saying you can’t use those words, I am saying that using them is offensive, even if you think they are an apt analogy.
I have taken quite a few lumps trying to get my party to openly look at what we have done wrong, and assholes like Durbin come around and provide people that want to pretend EVERYTHING is hunky-dory all the political cover they need.
I think we need to re-consider our Gitmo policy and make a decision what to do with these people in the long run. I don;t knowwhat to do with them, but we need to do something- indefinite detainment isn;t going to work, I don;t think.
And then Durbin comes along and starts shouting about Nazi’s and Pol Pot and what not, and before you know it, every damn blog is linking to the Gitmo Cookbook or linking to the pictures of WWII concentration camps.
So spare me the Durbin defense- he isn’t ‘shocking’ anyone into reality with careless speeches. Running around equating our soldiers to Nazi’s, equating their actions to Nazi’s, our saying that some people are held in Nazi-like conditions does nothing but piss people off and hurt the situation.
Stormy70
Durbin, and all of you who are defending him, is why you do not win elections. No matter how stirred up the Christian Right gets everyone, they are not enemies who want to see us all dead. Most people distinguish the difference, and Democrats, who freak out over Christina Aguilara music played at terrorists to torture them, look weak. WEAK. Durbin is an asshat of the highest order. I think our military got his message clear enough, and he may not want to be alone with them anytime soon.
foolishmortal
I second katherine’s arguments: you’re way off base here. The behavior we have seen in Guantanomo/Abu Graib/Bagram /is/ more reminiscent of a (gasp) gulag than of a pre-9/11 American prison.Got a problem with that? Good. Want to pretend that the problem is others who find this objectionable? Not so good. Figure out which side you’re on pal, then we’ll talk.
John Cole
Welcome back, Stormy. Thought you had disappeared on us.
KC
I guess I just don’t get it. I read Durbin’s comments and he said,
“If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags . . . Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.”
So, Durbin read a statement from an FBI agent that described torture (or whatever you want to call it) at Gitmo, then said that if he didn’t let us know where he got the description from, we might think it was a description of prisoners under authoritarian regimes. I mean, isn’t he sort of right? I guess the only way I see this as comparing US soldiers to Nazis etc. is if 1) you want to ignore Durbin’s whole statement or 2) want to ignore the issue of torture altogether and spin it in a way that makes Durbin look bad. I don’t like Nazi comparisons, I don’t think people in either party should use them, but this was hardly that. And if it was, it was barely so.
Stormy70
Thanks, John. I went on a road trip with my Dad and sister to New Mexico. A cousin got married at the top of a mountain, while my Da and all the men froze in their kilts. Good times! Lots of scotch, cards and green chili eating, but no blogs. Almost freaked out.
KC
Ah, now I see your point John. Durbin should have chosen his words more carefully. I’ll go with that.
Darrell
I see foolishm, you want to compare a POW camp housing terrorist combatents who were caught violating every civilized rule of warfare: fighting out of uniform, hiding among civilians, and waving white flags of surrender before firing on our troops.. you compare the treatment of terrorists at Gitmo with their culturally sensitive meals and Korans to a “gulag”. Brilliant
JohnC, take a good close look at the left here. Not some tiny loon fringe, but a significant portion actually defending and excusing the comparison of our troops to Nazis and Pol Pot. It’s what they really believe, it’s who they are
Anderson
How, exactly, should Durbin have chosen his words more carefully? He was being pretty careful. His “you would think I was describing” rhetoric was obviously meant to AVOID any simple equations of our guys and Nazis.
That said, which country’s military/intel would you ordinarily think would treat prisoners in the way that was described?
(1) Nazi Germany
(2) United States
If you’re an American, and your answer is “I can’t decide, and it doesn’t bother me that I can’t decide,” then I am really, really creeped out to be sharing my country with you.
The point of Durbin’s remarks is, the bright lines that are supposed to make such comparisons shocking and inflammatory are, in fact, disappearing. And even good guys like John Cole are helping them disappear, by insisting that we draw VERBAL lines even as the lines vanish in REALITY.
Darrell
So, Durbin read a statement from an FBI agent that described torture (or whatever you want to call it) at Gitmo, then said that if he didn’t let us know where he got the description from, we might think it was a description of prisoners under authoritarian regimes. I mean, isn’t he sort of right?
Yeah, Durbin was ‘right’ until you consider the fact that Pol Pot, Nazis, etc were gassing and butchering millions of innocent civilians without cause.
But besides that, Durbin was right
Stormy70
Durbin is still an idiot, no matter how you guys parse it.
Wrye
Jon Stewart has it right, I think: “You know who was a lot like Hitler? HITLER!”
It’s a tough call. How do you call attention to unconscionable actions which are more typical of totalitarian regimes (people dying in custody is more the issue than pop music, do recall) in language that is strong enough that it can’t be dismissed and yet clear enough that scoundrels can’t twist it into an attack on troops?
Katherine
Right, I know you weren’t saying it was a crime to use those words. I’m saying, to say certain words are BAD and should never be used, and that it is completely irrelevant how one uses them, is stupid political correctness.
If you’re not going to address what Durbin actually said, if you won’t read the whole speech to see that he very carefully did not draw the equivalency that Amnesty International did, there’s no point in having this discussion.
norbizness
I don’t know why this thread is even continuing after Katherine’s comment. As for the underlying post, I’ll settle for actually reprinting somebody’s words in their full context one time in the next 40 years, rather than pointing to two posts that seem to be seizing on what Michelle Malkin thought was the intent of Senator Durbin (no offense, Jeff).
As for a post that does have the whole quote, you can check out Von at Obsidian Wings.
John Cole
Well, Katherine, I think the proof is in the pudding. While I have read Durbin’s statement and recognize that he meant to say if you look at the actions done by X, if you did not know any better, you would think they were done by Y.
I understand what he was saying. I know he didn’t call them Nazi’s. But just by using it, he has queered the whole debate.
capriccio
No need to negotiate anything away, John. I think Hitler has officially jumped the shark with this one. I’ll bet we won’t be hearing references to his likes again until someone brings out a biz book along the lines of Hitler’s Top 10 Efficiency Tips. Still, to suggest that Democrats lose elections because of loose lips is a bit of a stretch. I work in a pretty savvy office. The political topics of the past 24 hours have been The Autopsy; DSM, and Randy Duke Cunningham (a local boy). Not a word about Dick Durbin’s hyperbolic episode. It’s an inside the blogoshere kind of thing, and not a single vote will be won or lost becauee of it.
KC
Katherine, you make a good point. Either way, Durbin’s going to get hammered by the right. They don’t want to deal with the issue of Gitmo mostly. On the other hand, some on the left are going to make direct and ignorant comparisons between Nazis and Americans. These people will get Durbin folded into their crowd, sadly.
Kimmitt
combatents who were caught violating every civilized rule of warfare:
Wait, we’ve had military hearings to determine the status and/or guilt of every inmate in Guantanamo? When did this happen?
But just by using it, he has queered the whole debate.
There would be no debate without Durbin’s words. The people who have worked themselves into a froth over this would either ignore any other wording or accuse Senator Durbin of treason for daring to criticize US policy anyways. This is the right-wing blogosphere doing what it does best — acting as apologists for atrocity.
Darrell
Katherine, dishonestly in my opinion, would have us believe that this is all some sort of crazy mixup, in which Durbin’s words are being twisted and taken out of context
Here are Durbin’s own words. Nope, not taken out of context. Durbin explains clearly: “If I read this to you, and didn’t tell you that it was an FBI agent, describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have happened by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime, Pol Pot or others, that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that’s not the case. This was the action of Americans in treatment of their own prisoners.”
Keep in mind, Durbin’s smear is based on an UNVERIFIED FBI report. Much of the left would love to take the US down a notch with smears like this. That’s why you see them defending Durbin, characterizing him as a courageous truth-teller. Now can we call them unpatriotic?
J. Michael Neal
John’s argument boils down to a belief that telling the truth makes Durbin a moron. He may be right, but isn’t that a reason to be ashamed of Republicans, rather than Durbin?
Stormy apparently can’t read, since he goes on about the rap music. In addition to indicating that he doesn’t take the other accusations seriously, it also means he doesn’t get it. The problem with the blaring music isn’t that Cristina Aguilera offends anyone’s sense of aesthetics; it’s that they are using it to keep prisoners awake. I don’t know if Stormy has ever suffered from a sleep disorder, but I do. What they are doing is torture.
John Cole
John’s argument boils down to a belief that telling the truth makes Durbin a moron.
Thanks for your enlightened contribution to the debate.
Darrell
Kimmitt wrote: Wait, we’ve had military hearings to determine the status and/or guilt of every inmate in Guantanamo? When did this happen?
then in the same post he writes:
This is the right-wing blogosphere doing what it does best — acting as apologists for atrocity.
Kimmitt, using your own ‘logic’, tell us of the proven “atrocities” committed by US troops.
M. Scott Eiland
In Mr. Durbin’s defense, he’s far from being the biggest loon on the congressional left regarding these matters.
Jim
Curious: why is this not filed under Democrat Stupidity? Haven’t seen one of those on here in quite a while.
washerdreyer
John, I really think you’re falling victim to the rhetoric of people who want to be avoid a discussion of how best retain/regain our stature as a moral exemplar. Look at Durbin’s speech independent of the commentary on it. The offensive thing is that such actions are taking place, not that they are similar to actions taken by much worse regimes. There are appropriate and inappropriate times to invoke a particular comparison. It would be extremely inappropriate to say, for instance, “Nazi soldiers marched, out soldiers march, our soldiers are just like Nazis.” But this isn’t anything like that.
John Cole
John, I really think you’re falling victim to the rhetoric of people who want to be avoid a discussion of how best retain/regain our stature as a moral exemplar.
ARGGGHH!
I am falling victim to idiots in the Senate who keep using inflammatory rhetoric that allows both sides to continue on flaming each other without addressing the issue.
Far North
That’s great, John. You were delicately trying to talk some sense into your fellow republicans and that Durbin guy ruined it all by saying the actions of some of our soldiers was more like Nazis than Americans. Then the senisitive mind of the conservative went “tilt”, just when you were making progress. It’s all Durbin’s fault that Republicans can’t see how wrong torture is, right?
Puleeeeeze!
Katherine
saw the update. Fair enough. As for whether it queers the debate:
unfortunately, this sort of idiotic shouting match is the ONLY sort of debate that makes the TV news & gets sustained attention from the newspapers.
I have no way of proving this to you but: I don’t like Nazi comparisons. “You know who was like Hitler? Hitler!!!” In most cases they’re idiotic, inaccurate and offensive. In other cases, they are a deliberately or carelessly inflammatory way that could be made just as well with another analogy that ought to carry just as much force.
I also have a strong bias for letting the facts speak for themselves. If I were Durbin, I would have read that FBI memo and a whole series of excerpts from government documents and other credible reports of torture (he could have picked much worse excerpts than the one he read.) That is what I would be inclined to do. Let the thing speak for itself. That is what I wish Durbin would do now that he has everyone’s attention.
I have done a lot of research on the torture issue–specifically rendition–and that is the approach I have taken. I have posted some of it online (here, if you’re interested.) The rest I have written into an 86-odd page paper.
Here’s the thing: if Durbin had done that, if he had taken my approach, would his remarks have received any press coverage at all? Would they have generated any debate?
As someone who has been following this very closely, who wants to believe as much as possible that the factual approach would work–I doubt it. I have convinced some people with that approach, but I know it would never, ever work with TV news or with Republican Senators.
So which is better?
1) A stupid overheated debate, or 2) no debate at all?
I realize that this shouldn’t be the choice, but given the ability of the Senate GOP not to believe inconvenient facts–you know all about that from the Schiavo case–and the crapitude of the media, and based on a fair bit of knowledge in this area, I think this was the choice that Durbin thought was in front of him, and I think he might well have been right.
With AI, they actually compared the scale of the horrors at Gitmo to those of the Gulag. Durbin didn’t. He very carefully avoided that.
With AI, they are supposed to be credible reporters of human rights vioaltions; that is their raison d’etre. There are ethical problems with prioritizing the media reaction to their statements over the accuracy of their statements. They should not be writing their annual report based on how it will play in CNN.
Durbin is a politician. He’d be a pretty lousy one if he didn’t consider the political effect of his statements, and that includes media coverage. It’s not subordinating his main job to politics; his job is politics.
He may have been wrong to do this–it partly depends on how he handles it from here on out–but I don’t think it’s as simple as you say it is.
And he isn’t the only one “queering the debate” here. It was easy to predict that his remarks would be distorted, but I think the people distorting them are more responsible for that than Durbin is.
J. Michael Neal
I am falling victim to idiots in the Senate who keep using inflammatory rhetoric that allows both sides to continue on flaming each other without addressing the issue.
You think that this issue is worth imflammatory rhetoric. Why shouldn’t Dick Durbin? Why shouldn’t any of us? There are things in this world that call for it, and this scandal is one of them. Dick Durbin didn’t talk past anyone; as much as you find it an offensive comparison, these are things that would be more appropriate in a Nazi concentration camp than in any facility run by Americans. People who deny that seem to think that it is a very American thing to do to chain people in a fetal position for 24 hours and make them lie in their own excrement.
I disagree. I have a much higher opinion of my country than that. I agree with Dick Durbin that these are actions and policies that I never thought that I would see my government use. People ought to be shocked that we are using the same type of methods that these hideous regimes did. I want them shocked before it reaches the point that we use all, or even a quarter, of the methods that they used.
My original comment came about because I know, from your writings, that you think all of this, too. And yet, you react with anger when Durbin points out what ought to be obvious.
Geek, Esq.
Durbin was dumb to use the new “N” word. No doubt about that.
But, at the same time, the ‘outrage’ of people whose ideological leader once compared the US government to the Gestapo is really nothing but a disingenuous distraction.
JG
Washer dreyer’s right. Instead of a blog post about whats happening down there you made a blog post about the word someone used to describe it.
Comparing the actions to Nazis may be the excuse some senators are looking for to keep from visiting the real issue. Deosn’t mean people shouldn’t use the word, it means we should point out the idiocy of semators who try anything weak ass excuse imaginable to avoid issues. Whats next? Budget debates break down when a senator makes a mean face? Is this Congress or an elementary school student council?
Stormy70
I don’t care if those poor terrorists are sleep deprived, period. They want to see me dead, and the feeling is mutual. I am almost to the point of not caring what they do to them at Gitmo, and I am against physical torture. The point is that Democrats look weak on National Defense. Do you really want your party to care that terrorists are not getting tucked into bed every night. It seems a stupid hill to die on, and it is politically stupid to appear to compare our soldiers to Nazis. The military is the most revered government institution, while Congress sits somewhere near the bottom.
Brad R.
Can we just not use the word “Nazi” unless someone is actually rounding up millions of people and putting them in death camps? Por favor?
Jeff
Yeah, what Brad R said.
Why this is so fucking hard for people to understand is beyond me.
John Cole
Can we just not use the word “Nazi” unless someone is actually rounding up millions of people and putting them in death camps? Por favor?
I could just kiss you right now, Brad. In a strictly heterosexual, patriotic way, of course.
Brad R.
I wanna add something-
There are plenty of things that qualify as “bad” and “should not be done” that don’t rise to the level of Nazism.
It’s entirely possible to oppose, say, American policy of extraordinary rendition without comparing it to one of the worst mass murderers in the history of the world.
Brad R.
I could just kiss you right now, Brad. In a strictly heterosexual, patriotic way, of course.
Careful, I got liberal cooties ;-)
gratefulcub
I think Durbin chose his words very carefully, just as amnesty chose
Brad R.
Neither believed that US soldiers were acting like nazis or that Gitmo was a gulag. They used these words for the reaction they got.
Gratefulcub-
The thing is, when you toss the “Nazi” comparison around, it desensitizes us to what the Nazis really did.
If the US government made a policy of rounding up every Arab (not just the ones who are suspected terrorists) and putting them into death camps, THEN you could justifiably use the Nazi comparison.
Until then, I think saying the policies on torturing terrorist suspects is “un-American” is good enough for me.
Brad R.
And btw, “write” like “Kaye” all you “want”- she’s my “hero.”
Halffasthero
“Why this is so fucking hard for people to understand is beyond me.”
I could not have said it better myself. But then I am looking at it from a different angle. I care very much about what is being done in our country’s name. Parsing arguments by saying someone used a word is beside the point entirely.
Stormy70
Brad and John, get a room. Then put it on pay per view ;).
gratefulcub
It isn
Thomas
I have no problem with purging the word ‘Nazi’ and everything else on that level from my vocab.But what is that going to do? Will Bush suddenly admit that we are torturing detainees and holding them without any legal means of assessing their guilt? Will his defenders stop pretending that everybody in Gitmo is a terrorist and that our torture consists of screwing with A/C and serving a dry pilaf? People who know what is going on have been subjected to an incredible stream of lies and bs by the same hacks who are now pretending that Durbin is the problem. Does anybody think that this is going to change? Or will there be another parsed statement, so outrageous that the left once again can’t be taken seriously? How many times do you have to touch the electric cheese before you realize it’s rigged?
gratefulcub
Brad R.
Until then, I think saying the policies on torturing terrorist suspects is “un-American” is good enough for me.
I wish you were right. But we tried that for months, it didn’t work. So now we will try saying outlandish things like Nazi. If a conversation is started, that is all that matters.
Brad R.
I’ve said all I can say about this, so I’ll just defer to the wisdom of Jon Stewart (see video at Crooks & Liars).
Katherine
(oh, and be fair, they were reading from the Gitmo cookbook before Durbin said a thing.)
I don’t like making even a conditional and limited defense of Nazi analogies, my natural inclinations are with Brad R. and Jon Stewart on this one, but–look. You don’t have to agree with Durbin’s choice, but please do seriously consider what I wrote about what may have motivated it. Because I am pretty unusally familiar with both Durbin and the torture issue, and while I’m guessing it’s at least an educated guess. And don’t dismiss everything Durbin says about this issue automatically, no matter how stupid you think this one comment was.
Jeff
halffasthero,
What I’m saying is, I don’t understnad the connection between saying he shouldn’t have used the word nazi and somehow condoning abuses at gitmo. I’m only speaking for myself here, but I think it cheapens the debate.
I mean, my liberal friends can’t understand how after numerous Republican fuck-ups (and this moderate Republican will say, there’s been many) why the Democratic party isn’t making more inroads.
It’s because of crap like this. And i’m not even saying all of it’s legitimate. But come election time (and this doesn’t apply to Durbin because, despite his stupid rhetoric in this case, I think he’s safe and i actually think he’s a pretty sharp guy and a good senator), Democrats are gonna be running on Delay being a sleazebag and Santorum being a nut, and then Republicans are gonna respond by saying that some Democratic senator called some of our soldiers nazis (and yes, I know he didn’t say that).
Go back to what Brad R said. There are plenty of ways to point out how nasty one thinks things are in gitmo without evoking some of the worst mass-murderers in human history.
gratefulcub
Stormy,
You are right, it is political suicide to defend the rights of suspected terrorists at Gitmo. But it is right. WE DON’T TORTURE. It really is that simple. That is the principle that Durbin is fighting for. He isn’t doing it because it will advance his career, he is doing it because he believes in an America that doesn’t torture, instead of an Amurika that says it doesn’t torture.
So, Durbin took up a fight that hurts his career, and he added the Nazi and Gulag comparisons knowing that it would cause a debate while hurting his career. Taking a personal hit to fight for American principles, and he is ‘unamerican’. Looks more like an American hero to me, but then I don’t believe in torture (without caveats)
Katherine
“It’s entirely possible to oppose, say, American policy of extraordinary rendition without comparing it to one of the worst mass murderers in the history of the world.”
Note that I have never argued otherwise; in fact I have done so at great length and without a single Nazi comparison. “The truth is bad enough” as my college journalism prof said.
I am saying, I am not so sure it is possible to oppose extraordinary rendition in a way that gets sustained coverage from TV news without using deliberately inflammatory language. Not if you’re just the minority whip.
The nice thing about opposing rendition is that you don’t have to draw analogies between the behavior of U.S. soldiers and the behavior of the military police in brutal dictatorships–you can cut out the middleman and oppose brutal dictatorships.
Far North
OK, how bout this for all of you overly sensitive conservatives:
American actions in Gitmo are more like something we expect to see in Pakistan…..oh shit, that’s our aly in the war on terror, wait, American actions in Gitmo are more like something we expect to see in Saudi Arabia….oops, our ally too.
OK just what fucking country and group is it OK to associate with Gitmo?
John, this whole discussion on the political correctness of using the term “Nazi” is ridiculous. If Durbin’s the use of the term makes it harder for you to convince republicans that torture is not worthy of America, then the problem is with the Republicans, not Durbin.
gratefulcub
But still better than Uzbekistan!
gratefulcub
And no one is saying anything about the troops. This IS policy, it isn’t the troops. Why is it that if the policy of this administration is questioned, it is an attack on the troops? I read today that we may have used a modern day napalm in Fallujah, if we did, that is wrong. But, I am not blaming the troops, except for the General that decided to command the troops to use napalm.
I am not saying we did use napalm, i am saying it was reported and I used it as an example.
durbin
Clarification:
Next time, “when I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control”, you can cheerfully say that this is the United States of America and I am proud of her!
p.lukasiak
shorter John Cole….
“It can’t happen here….”
shorter non-wingnuts….
“Its starting to happen, and the only way to stop it is to recognize it.”
shorter John Cole…
“but it can’t happen here…”
shorter non-wingnuts…
“”But it is starting to happen, and the only way to stop it is to recognize it.”
(repeat until exhausted….)
Rick
Don’t fell like reading 60 howling messages, but if no one else has, I’ll point out that the Illinois Nazi-equater employed the onle “anonymous email” bit.
From the K.Lo post a few days ago, we know that’s a red herring.
Cordially…
Halffasthero
…and welcome back Stormy. I mentioned you and Rick on a post a couple days ago and that was when it was noticed you had not been around in a while.
Good choice, scotch. I have a nice large bottle of Pinch calling my name when I finish work tonight. : )
No chili though, strictly the lab experiment left-overs in the fridge.
MI
Thanks for elevating the debate, Dick.
HA!
I agree with John’s original point that this is the kind of thing that makes people think Democrats are utterly out of touch. But I think the overall point from the left is true as well. The fact that we’ve gotten to where it’s, “hey, our torture isn’t as bad as their torture!” is sad.
I think with the whole torture issue, Democrats are busy using wild rhetoric, and Republicans have their heads in the sand. Neither side seems ready to seriously deal with the problem and get it taken care of.
Stormy70
Thanks, it is nice to be missed. :)
Now, being without scotch would be torture.
Kimmitt
Can we just not use the word “Nazi” unless someone is actually rounding up millions of people and putting them in death camps? Por favor?
But what will Rush call women he doesn’t like? Won’t you please think of the children?
Halffasthero
“Now, being without scotch would be torture.”
I drain my liquor cabinet alphabetically. The rum (Meyers) went before the scotch. After the scotch, I go to the tequila (Commemorativo Anejo sp? – the dark brown bottle). I probably wont get to that for a few weeks – just opened the bottle. : )
Rick
Wll, not a red herring, properly understood, but a Really Bad Thing.
There!
Cordially…
Darrell
I think with the whole torture issue, Democrats are busy using wild rhetoric, and Republicans have their heads in the sand.
I don’t get the Republicans-head-in-sand business. Can you be more specific? Seriously, are there Republicans running around making excuses for Abu Ghraib?.. or is it simply that Repubs are looking for some perspective and proportion in dealing with it. After all, Abu Ghraib does not = Stalin’s gulags and US treatment of terrorists is better than what innocent Jews experienced in the hands of Nazis, no matter how many times the left tells us differently
Too many Dems are too quick to take the actions of a few, such as in Abu Ghraib (which was exposed by the military itself), and use that as a stick to tar the entire military. It fits right in with their Iraq = Vietnam, US military prisons = gulags mentality.
Full disclosure: I believe some forms of torture such as sleep deprivation may be useful in some cases to extract information out of terrorists. But I think those cases should be the exception, and be closely monitored without giving any sort of open-ended authorization on torture. There are too many on the left who sanctimoniously proclaim that all torture is “unacceptable”, without dealing with the aftermath of information which could have (possibly) otherwise have been obtained to save lives
Mike S
You are right. The correct use of Nazi comparrison is to say that Democrats are like Hitler complaing when we were getting him out of Paris.
I’ll make you a deal. As soon as the people who are displaying their mock outrage will allow me to:
1) Beat the shit out of them.
2) Strip them naked.
3) Beat the shit out of them.
4) Chain them in the fetl position for 18-24 hours.
5) Lay in their own shit and piss for the duration.
6) Look forward to all of that for the rest of their lives.
7) Hope to be given a chance to clear their name. (for those who were just sold to us by war lords)
Then I will listen to the likes of Hannity and his indignation. I don’t usually compare people to Nazis and I’m not sure I would have in this situation. But the fact oif the matter is that all of the above, and more, has been documented in gitmo and/or Abu Ghraib. This is being done in our name. And the fact that Halliburton has been given a contract to build a new prison there doesn’t look good for any innocents that have been taken there.
Now my question to those who defend gitmo. Are the terrorists worse than the Nazis? My feeling is that they are about equal but no worse.
So why can’t we have a Nuremberg type trial for them? If for nothing else than a pr move it is far better than claiming to be a country about laws, freedom and rights while detaing people in perpetuity without even a soviet style trial.
Anderson
Does everyone think the Nazis were bad only because of Auschwitz?
The Nazis had a nasty reputation all through the 1930s without building a single death camp, because they were the kind of gov’t that would arrest people, abuse and torture them, and deny them any meaningful due process.
Somehow, back in the 1930s, Americans and others could perceive that this was wicked behavior.
We seem to have lost our moral sense since then. Must be the fault of the 1960s. And, of course, Bill Clinton.
Al
I understand what he was saying. I know he didn’t call them Nazi’s. But just by using it, he has queered the whole debate.
“Billy, now, keep quiet. You don’t want to make Daddy hit you again.”
I won’t blame a news report if a bunch of radicals use it as an excuse to cause riots, death, and destruction, and I won’t blame the senator for being the Gitmo-abuse deniers’ excuse du jour for changing the subject. Excuses are excuses. No matter how ill-advised a remark that may have been, it ain’t Durbin who really has to change.
ppgaz
There are no Nazis in service to the US. Not in the armed forces, and not in the civilian leadership.
However …. those of us in the opposition party are not too keen on giving anyone on the other side a pass on language. We are not the ones who declared a “cultural war” on half of our own country, and we are not the ones who declare on a regular basis that outposken opposition is unpatriotic.
I’d like to see some accountability and restraint on the majority side of these issues once in a while. I have no problem forswearing the playing of the Hitler card on our side. It’s neither honest nor productive.
I won’t sit still for sanctimonious browbeating, however, by a team of lunkheads who think nothing of the use of excessive and divisive language whenever it suits their purpose. The constant barrage of lies and hypocrisy is intolerable and demands forceful complaints … my specialty ;-)
Margie
The problem is that you do not like ‘us’ criticizing ‘your’ war and the way it has been handled. The fact is, there have been many Nazi references on both sides.
The difference is that the Democrats say the ‘abuse’ that has gone on is Nazi like; the Republicans have likened the Democrats to Nazis’. which is worse – Don’t even try to make the problems in this war our fault.
Darrell
The fact is, there have been many Nazi references on both sides.
If you’re honest Margie, you’ll admit that one side is using it a helluva lot more than the other. It started with all the Bush=Hitler protest signs and has become a hallmark phrase for much of the left.
You got equivalent examples of Repubs using the Nazi comparison to smear Dems? Because I’m not seeing it. Let’s not pretend there is equivalence on this score.
RSA
I agree that Durbin’s comments probably lowered the level of the debate, but I’m curious what would have happened if he’d described the incidents and summarized by saying something along the lines of, “The men who committed these acts, and those who ordered them, were depraved, sadistic, and evil, and they deserve the most severe punishment. Americans everywhere should be ashamed of them.” Am I being overly paranoid to suspect that Durbin would be accused of a rhetorical attack on the American military?
P.S. Did Rick Santorum queer the filibuster debate by likening his Democratic colleagues to Hitler?
Al
You got equivalent examples of Repubs using the Nazi comparison to smear Dems?
Off the top of my head, 1) “feminazis”, 2) Santorum comparing liberals to fascists twice last month, and 3) there’s still one on the front page of this very site!
Let’s not pretend there is equivalence on this score.
Let’s not pretend “this score” actually refers to something that has any real significance when compared to, oh, say, sticks and stones.
John Cole
Of for the love of christ. IF you think calling someone a safety Nazi, an ironic and humorous nickname, is the same as equating people with actual Nazis, then you might as well just leave this blog and never come back.
Hell, I bet the Seinfeld Soup Nazi episode sent you through the damned roof.
RSA
You got equivalent examples of Repubs using the Nazi comparison to smear Dems?
Do you happen to recall a Bush campaign video about “The Faces of John Kerry’s Democratic Party”? Gore, Hitler, Dean, Moor Gephart, Hitler, Gore, Kerry. Hmm.
Of course, this was closely tied up with the MoveOn.org controversy, which somehow I doubt would have been nearly as controversial without people on the right whipping it up.
Al
Of for the love of christ. IF you think calling someone a safety Nazi, an ironic and humorous nickname, is the same as equating people with actual Nazis, then you might as well just leave this blog and never come back.
Of course I don’t. But this is exactly my point. These arguments about “comparisons” are idiotic. Anything can be spun into a “comparison”, and all “comparisons” are then treated as if the speaker had actually said X == Y, and it’s all slippery-slope crap.
I am in no way offended by your “safety Nazi” reference, find nothing offensive in the actual words used by Durbin, and only thought one of Santorum’s two fascist “comparisons” actually crossed the line into “equating”. I’ve been completely consistent about this point: I think getting worked up about “comparisons” is dumb.
Bernard Yomtov
I have taken quite a few lumps trying to get my party to openly look at what we have done wrong, and assholes like Durbin come around and provide people that want to pretend EVERYTHING is hunky-dory all the political cover they need.
You want to give us a progress report? Tell us how you’re doing with your strategy before you criticize Durbin. Be sure to check the comment boards at some of the right-wing sites for evidence.
Your complaint seems to be that Durbin’s statement was bad tactics. It “queered the debate.” Why? Because it gave the nutballs something to distort, to misrepresent. Guess what? They were going to find something regardless. That’s supposed to be Durbin’s fault?
Suppose Durbin had stood up and simply read the FBI report aloud, in a dispassionate tone, and then said he objected to the events described. Do you really believe that would have made Republicans sit up and take notice, start calling for investigations and the like?
Give me a break. this whole “he said Nazi” thing is pure BS.
Bob
As we all know, when Stevie Wonder sang, “you are the sunshine of my life,” he was grossly overstating his position. Sunshine, originating from that star around which the earth revolves, cannot be equated with whatever Mr. Wonder may have felt towards the unidentified object of his affection, as stated in that song.
Likewise, the use of the word “Nazi” or “Soviet” do not apply to any alleged torture techniques used in the Guantanamo Detention Center by the representatives of the U.S. war effort. For example, Soviet gulags, when inflicting pain and suffering on its charges, used cold almost exclusively, whereas with current U.S. techniques Americans have taken advantage of both the tropic climate of Cuba as well as cold with the use of air-conditioning. This is a more advanced usage of temperature to extract information.
However, while withholding food from prisoners in Guantanamo for periods of time are certainly not the equal of the meager rationing of food to concentration camp occupants in Nazi Germany, the Nazis’ purpose was not to extract information. It would be unfair to suggest that Nazis were torturing prisoners in death camps to extract information.
I personally do not think that we should cloud the issue of U.S. conduct in the care of its prisoners. We should accept that what those soldiers do is American. It’s as American to “washboard” as baseball, hotdogs, apple pie and Chevrolet. They’re still making Chevrolets in America, right?
Americans should proudly have magnetic ribbons on their SUVs announcing “I support private contractors and CIA agents who washboard those enemy combatants who haven’t been extended rights under the Geneva Convention or our Constitution.”
ppgaz
There is a continual triumph-of-style-over-substance line of BS coming out of the GOP, of course.
Durbin flirts with the Hitler card, and suddenly, the Gitmo-prisoner treatment story is about Durbin.
Kerry challenges the conduct of the war and suddenly the validity of his Purple Heart is the story.
But honest opposition is called treason, and friendly to terrorism, and it’s okay.
There is a definite double standard, and of course, the press is impotent and flaccid in the face of all of it. Whipped into thinking that their job is “fairness”, when in fact, it is “reporting”, they are content to broadcast the “he said but she said, tastes great versus less filling” version of everything, and therefore, as the GOP well knows, the right is accountable for nothing, ever. Only outcomes matter, ends justify means, style trumps substance, and then we segue into “intelligent design” over science, and “faith” over facts, and voila!
We live in an upside down world now where good is bad and defeat is victory.
However … all that said … Dems need to play the “stay on message” game better. It isn’t necessary to hype the outrages pulled off daily by the potatoheads in charge in order to paint them for what they are … outrages.
Score, talk radio 1, Durbin 0.
Jason
Here’s the reason why we can’t have an intelligent, reasoned debate on the issue of torture. Because most of the people on this thread have no interest in intelligently discussing torture and other forms of interrogation that do not rise to that level in their proper, legalistic terms.
Gitmo has been compared to the Gulag, but I have yet to see anyone come up with evidence of anything that rises to the level of torture, as defined by the UN’s Convention Against Torture. Instead, the concrete examples I’ve seen rise to the level of “stress and duress” – but these tactics have never been condemned by the UN, the United States or the world community in general.
To put it bluntly, there are levels of interrogation tactics – starting with torture, which obviously has been universally condemned by the international community. But then, there are two other terms – ill treatment and stress & duress tactics – which do not rise to the level of torture and have both been widely used by western governments in the past. Both of these terms remain undefined by the United Nations, although it has been established that ill treatment includes forcing detainees to stand in stressed positions for long periods of time. Several years ago, the International Criminal Court ruled that ill treatment was legal under customary international law (…if I remember right, the case arose in regard to British interrogation of IRA terror suspects).
Stress and duress tactics sit at the bottom of the interrogation scale, and these tactics include general nonphysical means of discomfort – sleep deprivation, loud music, etc. Both the US and UN have recognized stress and duress are legal – and the US has used these tactics long before 9/11.
That’s what really irks me about this whole debate. No one is interested in discussing this issue intelligently – instead, the term torture is broadly used to describe tactics that do not even remotely rise to that level. This thread is a wonderful example that a lot of people’s moral concerns about torture are secondary to their interest in using the issue to defeat the president and/or the GOP.
There are serious issues here to discuss, but Durbin’s comments do little to “elevate the debate,” as John put it. I really don’t care whether or not he likened the U.S. military to Nazis – that’s his decision, and I’m sure it’s been wonderful red meat for the most ardent Democrats out there. But his use of that term, and Charles Rangel’s mock impeachment/variety show tell me that their concerns about torture only lie in their ability to use it to attack the White House.
Mike S
Do you happen to recall a Bush campaign video about “The Faces of John Kerry’s Democratic Party”? Gore, Hitler, Dean, Moor Gephart, Hitler, Gore, Kerry. Hmm.
Typical bullshit talking point. Some yahoo makes avideo, enters it in a compitition and it is yanked quickly. But if you listen to Hannity and think Drudge is honest, then you believe that it was a Kerrycampaign commercial.
It fucking amazes me that anyone would defend our treatment of prisoners. Not one person attacking Durbin and the dems has even admitted that it is completely fucked up. I haven’t even seen one person admit it should be looked into.
Nope, we get the bullshit “few isolated incidences” talking point. Maybe it started as isolated at gitmo, but the powers that be were so fond of it that they decided to move the people doing it over to Abu Ghraib.
What the fuck is wrong with you people? Is this realy the legacy that you want to leave to your children? Do you honestly think history will look back at prisoners being beaten, forced to lay in their own shit and in some instances murdered and say anything but “it was a black spot on American history?”
The FBI has called some instances “torture” and others “torture like.” Not amnesty, not the red cross. The FBI. Hell, we’ve seen their memo’s where they express concern that they “would be caught holding the bag.”
Please, someone tell me how you can defend this. We treated the Nazis better than this and they exterminated 6,000,000 people.
John Cole
Do you happen to recall a Bush campaign video about “The Faces of John Kerry’s Democratic Party”? Gore, Hitler, Dean, Moor Gephart, Hitler, Gore, Kerry. Hmm.
Now this won’t fly:
The Hitler clips were not Republicans likening Democrats to Hitler, they were clips of a MOVEON commercial likening Bush to Hitler.
The ad was, in this order, Al Gore screaming, the pro-Democrat MoveOn commercial attacking Bush by calling him Hitler, Howard Dean yelling, Michael Moore, Dicjk Gephardt calling the president a miserable failure, another MoveON clip created to make Bush like Hitler, and so on.
The video did not liken Kerry to Hitler, or Democrats to Hitler, it showed screaming Democrats and MoveOn videos likening Bush to Hitler.
I wrote about it in detail here.
Nice try, though.
Slartibartfast
Here’s my take.
ppgaz
You made a good point, Jason. The debate is really most effective when it is about the central issue, and not just a sideshow to politics.
Something for all in the loyal opposition to think about.
The Democrats slip when they try to beat the GOP at its own game, namely, demonization of the opponent. Given sufficient rope, the GO-Potatoheads will do themselves in.
Meanwhile, what is going on in the detention facilities?
Bruce Moomaw
Let’s keep things straight, guys. No, Durbin did not say that we are doing such things as often as the Nazis did. He said, correctly, that we’re doing Nazi-like things to a (relatively) small number of prisoners, and he said — correctly — that this is evil, even though it really was cretinous for Amnesty International to compare Guantanamo to the Gulag. Which is also exactly what Andrew Sullivan and Anne Applebaum (you know, those two lefty extremists) have been saying in heated language.
By the way, let’s keep in mind that the Roosevelt Administration explicitly forbade mistreatment of any Japanese POWs — despite the fact that Imperial Japan not only ignored Geneva rules but treated our POWs in the vilest ways imaginable. There would certainly have been plenty of Americans enthusiastically ready to support tit-for-tat mistreatment of their POWs. Why didn’t the government do it? Primarily because they wanted the war’s aftermath to be a peaceful but non-occupied Japan — and they knew damn well that abusing Japanese POWs was not the way to achieve this. That argument appplies in spades this time — we can hardly occupy the entire Moslem world, even briefly — so why the hell haven’t the arrogant halfwits who run the current war effort ralized this? Well, that question answers itself, doesn’t it?
Mike S
A quote by Avi Schlaim, an Israeli historian, on the issue of comparisons to Nazi Germany (in this instance referring to Israeli government and military leaders, but the parallel works here as well):
The issue isn’t whether or not we are the same as the Nazis, the issue is that we aren’t different enough.
Bruce Moomaw
Jason: “Stress and duress tactics sit at the bottom of the interrogation scale, and these tactics include general nonphysical means of discomfort – sleep deprivation, loud music, etc. Both the US and UN have recognized stress and duress are legal – and the US has used these tactics long before 9/11.
“That’s what really irks me about this whole debate. No one is interested in discussing this issue intelligently – instead, the term torture is broadly used to describe tactics that do not even remotely rise to that level. This thread is a wonderful example that a lot of people’s moral concerns about torture are secondary to their interest in using the issue to defeat the president and/or the GOP.”
Let’s review the techniques that FBI agent described being repeatedly used, shall we? Lying chained in a fetal position for more than a day in one’s own feces and urine — without water, let alone food. Having the room temperature deliberately turned so low that the “barefoot detainee was shaking”. Goes a teensy bit beyond “sleep deprivation and loud music”, wouldn’t you say? Jason is correct on one thing, though: quite a few people are uninterested in discussing this issue intelligently — including him.
RSA
I know that this was hashed out too long ago to be interesting, but for what it’s worth. . .
The video did not liken Kerry to Hitler, or Democrats to Hitler, it showed screaming Democrats and MoveOn videos likening Bush to Hitler.
That’s a supportable argument. It’s also perfectly reasonable to take the title of the commercial, “The Faces of John Kerry’s Democratic Party: The Coalition of the Wildeyed,” at face value (so to speak)–the text hangs on the screen for as long as any of the clips. So the commercial then shows some faces in the Democratic party, but for two of the clips (ignoring their provenance), the point isn’t the actual faces shown, Hitler’s and Bush’s, but rather some meta-level message about wild accusations. . . I’d have to believe that the producers who put that commercial together just had no sense of visual narrative, or that they expected viewers to carry out a close analysis of the underlying message of the campaign ad. I don’t think the producers were incompetents. The commercial probably did exactly what they expected it to do.
Nice try, though.
Is that better?
Randolph Fritz
John, if someone who I respected called me a nazi, I would be reviewing my conduct. If use of the epithet was, in addition, buttressed with evidence, I would be out there making what amends I could.
Truce? Sure, the right can stop calling the left “traitors”, “communists”, and, yes, “nazis” for 20 years or so, and then I’ll think about it. Let the right abandon verbal and physical abuse, and we’ll think about forgiving them. Maybe.
Slartibartfast
Actually, I took this quite differently. Quibble, perhaps, but I took it like this: one would have guessed that this sort of treatment would have happened at the hands of a more totalitarian regime than…this one? And that perhaps this sort of activity was a disappointment, maybe, coming from our own government and military?
jdm
Ninety-some (as of the present time) bile-filled comments – all in response to a post titled “Can We Just Have a Truce?”.
I’d say you got your answer, John C.
Mike S
I’m sorry if you find my comments over the top. But I am disgusted by a couple of things. Listen to Talk Radio and they are joking about it. They conveniently leave out the laying in the shit and joke about Agulera. Michael Medved thought he was hillarious when he said the should have used DMX.
Go to Powerline and buy a T-shirt that says “I heart Gitmo.” They even have one for dogs. A play on the soldiers using dogs?
This is the legacy we leave our children. When we should be finding out just what our goovernment is doing in our names we laugh about it instead.
Far North
This is so fucking absurd. The issue (or question) is about torture and America’s conduct in the running of these prisons and detention centers. But what do we get from the “can we just have a truce [on the Nazi thing]?”:
“You called us a Nazi.”
“You did it first”
“But you do it more”
“No we don’t, you do, you Nazi”
“Am not”
“Are too”
“Am not”
“Geobbels”
“Himler”
Fer fucks sake John, that whole “can we just have a truce” has taken on cable news debate standards.
Jason
Let’s review the techniques that FBI agent described being repeatedly used, shall we? Lying chained in a fetal position for more than a day in one’s own feces and urine — without water, let alone food. Having the room temperature deliberately turned so low that the “barefoot detainee was shaking”. Goes a teensy bit beyond “sleep deprivation and loud music”, wouldn’t you say? Jason is correct on one thing, though: quite a few people are uninterested in discussing this issue intelligently — including him.
Wow, Bruce… you sure showed me. I guess actually trying to properly define the terms associated with interrogation of detainees is useless – it’s all torture, as long as you say it is, right?
Considering your examples, I have to say that I’m not sure that either of them rise to the level of torture, as defined by the Convention Against Torture. Cold room temperatures? Those are stress and duress tactics, and they’re fully recognized as lawful nonphysical tactics, under customary international law. The other example may rise to a higher level, but more context is needed – calling it torture at this point is premature, from the basic definition provided by the UN.
Bruce, details are great – but the law is what we should be worried about here. You’re always going to be able to dredge up plenty of distasteful details, but without looking at this intelligently (sorry, Bruce… I know that word gives you the vapors) and in the proper context – we may be taking perfectly lawful behavior in regard to interrogations and transmogrifying it into torture.
Demanding that our military not engage in illegal acts, including torture, is beyond reasonable – in fact, it’s a moral imperative for Americans. But right now, we run the danger of demanding that our troops tie both hands behind their back in dangerous situations, because some of the details we’ve heard about were unpleasant.
Listen, all I’m asking is that we work through these issues intelligently and rationally. Durbin’s comments were meant to provoke an emotional response – and in this situation, I think it’s more important to carefully apply the law beforehand, instead of jumping to sloppy conclusions. I could give a rat’s ass about what happens to the Bush Administration in regard to this – if they sanctioned torture, throw the book at them. But if the legacy we leave to our children is at stake, as one poster has said, I think we owe it to ourselves to inspect these issues the right way, without letting politics be our primary concern.
jdm
Jason, while some Democrats were pretending to care about the so-called torture of little brown people who never much interested them before, others were pretending to impeach Bush (and bash Jews).
And you want to “work through these issues intelligently and rationally”? With whom?
Birkel
When did it become so hard to hold a crap for 24 hours? Are you people honestly so regular that you would poo your own pants if you didn’t get to the bathroom at least once every 24 hours? Is that seriously an argument?
And let’s not forget the guy who pulled out half his own hair!! Heck that guy was sane ’til he went to Gitmo!! After that he became a raving lunatic capable of pulling his own hair!! (Note the exclamation points to heighten the snarkiness!!)
You guys wouldn’t know torture if it bit you on the bum.
Kimmitt
Wow, I used to think that there was an intellectual underpinning to conservatism other than apology for brutality.
ppgaz
Actually, Birkel, reading your posts is toture. In fact I think your posts are specifically prohibited by the Geneva Convention.
Richard Bottoms
>The Hitler clips were not >Republicans likening Democrats >to Hitler, they were clips of a >MOVEON commercial likening Bush >to Hitler.
Wrong again. It was not a MoveOn commercial. It was a submission to a MoveOn contest.
It was removed as soon as they were made aware of the content and processes to better review the submissions before posting them were put in place.
I know because I entered the Bush in 30 Seconds contest.
The winners were made into commercials, not the random submissions.
ARROW
“Wrong again. It was not a MoveOn commercial. It was a submission to a MoveOn contest.”
I see… a submission, that happened to end up on the site for all to see. But no excuse is needed for the site’s lack of discretion?
The military should take a cue from the state of Florida, and simply withhold food and water for “prisoners.” It would put them in a state of eternal bliss and end the “torture.”
Mike S
Fuuny ARROW. Glad to see the God Squad approves of torture. I wonder what Jesus would say?
Randolph Fritz
“This man is simply a piece of excrement, a piece of waste that needs to be scraped off the sidewalk and eliminated.”–John Carlson, Seattle talk-show host. John, we can’t make peace with that. (via Dave Neiwert. And here is the inimitable Fafnir, reminding us that, at least, we are better than Galactus.)
carot
I’m beginning to think the only way the Dems can win an election to always be gagged in public. Dean calls Republicans White Christians like it’s a bad thing. Seems he doesn’t want any White Christian votes for the Dems.
Next they are lazy, and the only minorities you see there are in the kitchen so they are racist as well. Now they are Nazis as well. If you called Blacks the names the Dems called Republicans you’d be locked up for a hate crime.
It’s amazing to see a left wing party so utterly clueless about politics as the Dems are. In fact they are the worst peforming left wing party in the Western world. No other left wing party is as unsuccessful with their agenda as the Dems are. Gee, I wonder if it’s because they are doing something wrong?
Here’s a quick lesson in politics, that every other political party in the world learned hundreds of years ago.
1. In countries parties form into left and right wing parties.
2. Each party develops an ideology that is consistent around this left or right wing axis.
3. On the left this is called roughly Liberalism, and on the right Conservatism.
4. While there are some independant voices usually the party rallies around a central ideology. Sometimes this is extremist and sometimes moderate. At the moment the Republicans are dominated by extremists.
5. Usually a country runs best with a particular balance of left and right, and if the balance of the parties and politicians is wrong the country suffers.
6. Assuming equally intelligent politicians this balance is fixed by the opposing party pointing out the governing party is too extremist and that the opposing party is closer to the political balance the country needs. For example Blair just did this in the UK.
7. Every political party has some bad politicians, and some bad groups of people who vote for them. If you get rid of them then more bad people take their place. Generally voters don’t care if a politician is bad if he does a reasonable job most of the time. So people didn’t care that Bush and Blair were flawed.
8. No party wins election by pointing out the governing party has some bad people. The governing party’s voters just think their leaders are flawed and either demand new leaders or put up with their flaws. Also no party wins election by sayings its politicians are flawless because people don’t believe it, they think the leader will develop flaws anyway, and they are mainly concerned with the job the leader does anyway. This is why Kerry got nowhere running on his character and the Dems got nowhere pointing out how flawed Bush was.
9. The only way for an opposition party to gain power is to always point out all evidence the governing party is too extremist for the country. If the governing party’s voters believe this then they might vote for the opposition party to bring the politics of the country back in balance. Blair in the last election convinced voters the Tories were too right wing to govern. He at no time criticised them or their voters personally. The conservatives criticised Blair’s character relentlessly and by extension called the Labor voters stupid for voting for him. Blair won a historic victory.
10. If the opposing party doesn’t point this out then no one will. The governing party won’t criticise itself and their voters tend not to notice their own ideological extremism. They don’t want to admit their vote was stupid or they were gullible. They just want to know why their party’s ideology is wrong.
11. The opposing party cannot force the governing party voters to change their votes, they can only explain why the politics of the governing party is too extreme. So calling them names is counterproductive. It makes them feel stupid, and then they don’t want to vote for the people who call them names.
12. So the opposing party must always emphasise the governing party’s polticians and voters are good people but misguided by a too extreme ideology. The voters see they are not being attacked personally and re examine the ideology of the governing party.
What the Dems should be doing is saying that the torture policy is a natural outgrowth of a far right wing ideology. Hitler was far right wing. You don’t insult the troops by calling them Nazis, you lay the blame on Conservatism. Then let the right try and explain how torture fits into their politicial ideology.
SeaChief
Y’know… maybe we should treat the folks at Gitmo as good as Nazis treated US soldiers. You can read about that here: http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/text/x20/xm2063.html
Apparently, according to perhaps one of the most anti-Nazi information sites, US and British prisoners were bored.
Bored bored bored.
Which implies they weren’t tortured, weren’t subject to harsh interrogation tactics. Didn’t have AC blasting away, didn’t have blistering heat in the cooler.
Yeah, the Nazis committed the Holocaust and wiped out some 8 million people. That was their intent. But as far as POWs go, hey. Looks like they were treated according to the Geneva Convention.
Surprise surprise.
Far North
One thing that seems to have gotten lost is that, since there is no way for a detainee to contest his, what is it, arrest, incarceration, conviction, sentence? Hell, I don’t know what but the automatic assumption by many here is that every single fucking detainee in Gitmo (or Abu Graib or wherever) is guilty of terrorism. While I find torture of prisoners unproductive, immoral and un-American, the torture of those that are not guilty of any crime against America, is, well, Stalinist.
The problem some of us have is that there are reports from organizations such as the Red Cross that indicate that many of those detained by US and British forces are guilty of only being in the wrong place at the wrong time. How many? Hell, who knows what with the purposeful secrecy and all. But it’s not difficult to fathom that with all the chaos in Iraq and Afganistan, innocent men have been picked up in sweeps or turned over by warlords to US forces and later sent to Gitmo.
There isn’t much that is more reprehensible than the US government sponsored toruture of an innocent man.
AlanDownunder
Hey, no argument. Nazi torture licks US torture hands down.
But ‘get Durbin’ would have appealed to Goebbels.
BumperStickerist
Seachief –
you really, really really need to keep reading that site you linked to.
“Tidy administrators, the Germans generally segregated prisoners by nationality, rank and branch of service. Any contact between the segregated groups was prohibited, and the penalty for breaking this rule-even to help a fellow human being-could sometimes be death.”
Well … there is that whole ‘death’ thing to think about, but more importantly the Germans were able to segrate the groups based on nationality, rank, and branch of service.
Hmmmmm … that means that the Allied prisoners of war had some means by which their nationality, rank, and branch of service were identifiable … perhaps these Allied prisoners wore some sort of uniform while engaged in hostilities.
I’m guessing those poor souls in Gitmo were not wearing uniforms.
Also, you might want to compare and contrast the Nazi approach to dealing with insurgency and/or dealing with enemy combatants not in uniform with the US.
What I think is lacking from Durbin’s statement is any sense of proportion or context. His not a principled objection – Durbin’s lack of concern to the goings on in his home state’s correctional facilty show that – he’s simply trying to score cheap political points.
Bob
And speaking of “proportion and context,” how about Frist accusing Durban of saying that the troops were “committing genocide and war crimes”?
Darrell
how about Frist accusing Durban of saying that the troops were “committing genocide and war crimes”?
Bob, first of all, I could not find the quote you attribute to Bill Frist to check context. Please provide link. Second, given Durbin’s language and comparisons of our troops to some of history’s most brutal mass murderering regimes, a comparison made on the basis of an UNVERIFIED FBI report, I think such a comment from Frist, if he said it, would be entirely fair and proportional response to Durbin’s outrageous smear. But for many Dems, this is how they really view the world.. First it was Bush=Hitler signs, now defending and excusing comments comparing our troops to Pol Pot and Nazis. It’s who many of the Dems really are. It’s how they really see things. Take a good up-close look..
ARROW
“Fuuny ARROW. Glad to see the God Squad approves of torture. I wonder what Jesus would say?”
Hey Mike S, the “God Squad” didn’t come with this idea, or more accurately, the rationalization of an idea to kill someone. The COURTs in Florida devised the plan, and its apologists in the medical community gave it the seal of approval (since it is a real high, with no suffering, to be depreived of water and food). I was just suggesting that we be more humane.
Darrell
And to give further insight into the Democrat mindset, on Newshour with Jim Lehrer the other night, Sen. Patrick Leahy was actually making excuses for the terrorists who were released from US custody and caught later on the battlefield trying to kill our troops and Iraqis:
“Some, we are now finding, were picked up, not because they acted again us, but now that they have been held for several years, I suspect that they have a great deal of resentment against the United States and they may be against us.” PBS Transcript
Ah yes, it’s the US’s fault for making the terrorists want to kill us, because we had the gall to imprison them in the first place. In-f*cking-credible, but typical of how many (most?) Dems really think. Doubt me? Read the comments on this thread
Mike S
Which would Jesus pick? Water Boarding? Chaining in the fetal position covered in shit?
Jesus died on the cross, which obviously wouldn’t be construed as torture to the fundi’s, not for our sins but so that we would be free to treat anyone as we would choose.
Scripture sure has changed in the last decade.
Mike S
My goodness. Darrell calls that an excuse? I call tat common sense. What did you think they’d do? Go home singig praises of their treatment.
hat’s the young Republican mindset at work. Hewy Hewitt has taught you well.
Darrell
MikeS, just to be clear given the limitations of my ‘Republican mindset’, do our troops not have the right to detain and imprison terrorists who are trying to kill them? Because it sounds as if you and your fellow Dems think that such detentions and imprisonments are a bad thing. Please clarify, as I want everyone here to understand how you people really think.
Mike S
Idiot. Of course they do. But I ask again, are the terrorists WORSE than the Nazis? Did Roosevelt make a mistake by letting the world see our ideals of fair and open trials?
What jackasses like you refuse to acknowledge is that innocent people are getting caught up in all of this, being tortured or even just being treated like an animal, and then are being turned INTO terrorists. You’re so wrapped up in the Hewy Hewitt’s of our countries mindsets that you’re unwilling to see it.
Idiots like you believe idiots like Hewitt when they say we, Democrats, want us to lose. You’re too stupid to see that we just think the tactics employed are counter productive to winning. I don’t think the current tactics are designed to lose, I just think that’s an unintended consequence.
I have these debates with a lot of my ex military friends. They’re ex Navy Seals and retired Air Force Generals.None of them think I want us to lose. Not one of them has ever said I hate America. Every one of them knows I love this country and disagree with the current tactics.
It’s jackasses like you who get their talking points from the Talk Radio wing of the GOPwho make those claims.
Darrell
MikeS, Nuremburg trials are an invalid analagy on several counts. One, it was the leadership which was tried, not the grunts caught on the battlefield. Two, the leaders were fighting on behalf of identifiable countries.
Never in history has a country been asked to give courtroom rights to POW’s. Never
And given that a number of released terrorists have been re-captured trying to kill American troops and/or Iraqis, that would lead reasonable people to believe that if anything, we have been too lax in who we decide to detain.
You and your side is promoting the idea that there are large numbers of innocents being detained and “tortured”. Evidence? Of course you have none, because you a lying jackass. It’s who you are
I don’t deny the possibility that innocents are detained, or have been detained. This is the same problem with every damn war in history. Innocents are detained and killed in every war. It is an imperfect system. But Dems like you now want to bestow courtroom ‘rights’ to the little darlings, broadcast on CNN. Even better if military intelligence secrets came out in the trials too, right?
Yes, this is unchartered legal territory for us. But your side is the one clamoring for courtroom legal rights for military prisoners who were caught fighting out of uniform while spreading lies that large numbers of innocents are being ‘tortured’.
Mike S
Even better if military intelligence secrets came out in the trials too, right?
With that I say goodbye and fuck you. Baby Hewy has done his job. Morons like you have been indoctinated quite well and have proven that the founding fathers didn’t get their message through. Dissent and questioning the government is patriotic. Being a willing bukkake recipient of the Talk Radio wing is not.
Halffasthero
Damn, this post turned into a shitstorm! Passions are running very high over this whole issue and I am betting a truce is not in the near future.
By the way, the scotch was good, the ibuprophen this morning was even better. : )
Fledermaus
You and your side is promoting the idea that there are large numbers of innocents being detained and “tortured”. Evidence? Of course you have none, because you a lying jackass. It’s who you are
Maybe it’s just me but I think the burden of proof should be on those doing the torturing, no?
If there was anything like a review process to sort out terrorists from people in the wrong place, sold to us by Afgan warlords. You might have a point.
Until then the US is torturing innocent people. 200 people have been released from Gitmo, are you saying Bush is letting terrorists get off scot free?
SeaChief
BumperStickerist —
So the Germans liked to segregate people based on unit / rank / so on, and had harsh penalties for violating their rules. OK. That’s still not torture. POW camps aren’t usually compared to Hilton Resorts, or even state prisons (save those in Alabama, but I digress), but there’s a difference between harsh restrictions of rights and harsh penalties vs systematic torture.
And your arguments about how Nazis handled insurrections is again not part of the argument. Yeah, they were pretty brutal about it. Has anyone on this thread been bitching about how we handle the insurrection in Iraq? Apart from laughing at Dicky’s comments about it being in its “Last Throes,” no. This is about what US troops do to captured enemies.
Frankly, it looks to me that it was preferable to be a captured by the Nazis in WWII than captured by the US in Afghanistan.
And that is just sad.
ARROW
“I have these debates with a lot of my ex military friends. They’re ex Navy Seals and retired Air Force Generals.None of them think I want us to lose.”
No, you just go out of your way to defend people you don’t know, on the off-chance that they were completely innocent, and in the process make our military look like evildoers supreme. At bottom, you take the word of people caught in compromised positions over the word of the U.S. military. The fact that you can’t comprehend this is testament to your “patriotism.” And if what you are doing is patriotic, then I proud to be an American, and not a patriot.
One last thing, IF you have ex Navy Seals and retired Air Force Generals as “friends,” then they are just being diplomatic if they don’t tell you that you are giving aid and comfort to the enemy by your actions. Wakeup my moonbat friend.
Stormy70
Ibuprofen – One of the great drugs.
I (heart) Gitmo. Terrosist scum can rot for all I care, anymore.
Sojourner
I am amazed that not a single Republican appears to have the slightest problem with how the prisoners are being treated. Are you guys that traumatized by 9/11 that you’ve lost sight of what this country stands for?
This has certainly been an eye-opening dialogue. I feel so sorry for you guys. You may have all the power in this country but you’ve lost your collective souls. History will not treat your party kindly.
Stormy70
I live in Texas, it’s too hot to have a soul right now.
Far North
Sojourner,
Well put.
The future greatness of our country depends on how many Darrells and Stormy70s there really are in America. The fewer, the better.
Stormy70
Better watch out, we breed like rabbits.
Far North
Do you home teach your kids intelligent design? Or do you send them to James Dobson schools?
How’s that for stereotyping?
Mike S
Arrow
You are a fucking idiot. Have you served outside of your stint with the 101st?
Stick with your fuckwit talking points. I would die for these friends and they would die for me. They know that the beat thing this country has to offer is the abiliy to debate what you think is best for it. Fuckwit cock suckers like you have no clue.
Unfuckingbelievable. You don’t deserve to be an American you fucking piece of shit. If my friends met you they would laugh in your pathetic hannity loving face.
Mike S
Sorry John. Your site deserves better. I’ve known the General for 30 years and he is one of my and my families closest friends.
I’m sick to death of fuckwits like spArrow questioning my love for this country. If anyone hates this country it is those who spout off like that fuckwit. They think that Hannity is a “great American” and would accuse Maddison of being unAmerican. They are spineless cowards who would never say that to my face. Unless they had twenty of their freeper friends behind them.
Stormy70
Far North – I don’t have kids, yet. I guess I’ll have to get some humanity first, then I can make a joke. Or maybe that comes with the soul? You know I don’t fall in with the ID people, or the Terry Christians, or do you read my posts?
Slartibartfast
That’s because you haven’t been looking, Sojourner. I linked to one example upthread.
carot
I think the problem here is Durbin compare the troops to Nazis when there are lots of better examples.
In fact there is nothing new about the concept of Gitmo and treating terrorists this way. Bush’s policy is simply the extension of the right wing dictatorships of South America over the past few decades.
A better comparison might be Nicuragua under Somoza or Chile under Pinochet, or El Salvador. These were assisted with aid and weapons by Republicans at the time, including plenty of input from Poppy Bush.
The terrorists were communists sometimes but also a mix of peoples who believed they were being repressed by the ruling class. This is very similar to the situation in the Middle East where the US props up dictatorships like Jordan and Saudi Arabia instead of trying to make democracy.
All that’s happening now that instead of keeping these policies of rendition and concentration camps in those countries to further US interests the terrorists from those countries have started to attack here.
So Bush has simply taken the policies his father used against terrorism in South America in say Nicuragua and started to use them in the US. Now as well as rending people to concentration camps in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia they are sending them to Gitmo which technically is closer to being in the US. Only the venue has changed.
Consequently instead of the CIA being able to order terrorists to be tortured as they see fit in client states like Egypt (and Syria too don’t forget) they try and order this in Gitmo and Abu Gharaib and get in more trouble from the press because it is less plausibly deniable as being under US control. Amnesty which reports on torture in the US client states now extends this criticism to the US itself since the venues are now closer to home. The torture for US interests though is the same as it ever was.
All the Dems seem to be saying is to torture people in the US client states instead of bringing them into the US and are being called unpatriotic for it. Basically they don’t want to stop torturing any more than the Republicans do, they just want to keep it more at arms length.
Relax Republicans, no one is on the side of stopping your precious torture completely, nor of sending them to other countries to be tortured. They just think that if this behavior seeps into the US it will resemble a South American right wing dictatorship too much. The press might get repressed like it did there to stop them reporting atrocities. Better to keep it out of the country completely then to have to change the country too much by bringing it in house. Instead of Gitmo I’m sure the CIA has plenty of concentration camps in the US they could have sent these people to, and none of this bad press would have happened.
ARROW
Mike S:
Change your drugs, or maybe take your drugs, you pathetic , little fraction of a patriot. Go sell your crazy shit patriot line to your moonbat pals over at Kos. They’ll buy this limpdick crap.
Mike S
AAROW. Defining the fighting 101st. Why, when he gets out of moms basement he’ll have a few words for me. That’s after he gets them from Hannity and Hewy.
What a joke.
Mike S
Besides. If you think you define patriotism, I wand none of it.
ARROW
Mike S:
Pretty obvious you want nothing to do with patriotism. In fact, you define the very opposite. Speaking your mind is a good thing. But thinking what you are complaining about is REAL is important, well that’s pretty juvenile. Kind of like a 16 yr old rebelling against his daddy. Get a clue boy and shut up until you have some worth saying.
Mike S
spARROW.
What you know about real patriotism couldn’t fill a bazzooka bubble gum wrapper. Your version would be right at home in North Korea.
ARROW
Mike S:
You just proved my point, you have nothing worth saying. I asked you if you thought what you are complaining about, the alleged torture at Gitmo, is real important. Your intelligent response is to come back with juvenile flames.
from what I know about you so far, on a good day you’re a half-wit
Mike S
Thanks spARROW. Next time I need a good example of a talking points bukkake recipient, I’ll look you up.
Now go take the trash out before your mother starts charging you rent.
ARROW
Mike S.
What talking points??? Adios dimwit!