Just finally finished reading this depressing piece by Scott Horton detailing how we tortured people to death at Gitmo and then lied for years, insisting they were suicides.
Last year, I understood why, politically, the Obama administration chose to behave the way they did with the former administration, choosing to look forward rather than backwards. I didn’t like it at all, but I understood it.
I don’t know how that is a tenable position anymore (and it was always a bad moral compromise). This must be investigated, publicly and thoroughly, and people need to be brought to justice.
Redshirt
Ah the next batch of wingnut outrage points: Why does Obama hate the military? Why does he want terrorists to kill us? Doesn’t he know Bush kept us safe?!
CalD
@John Cole: Agreed.
Why oh why
Actually, tortured to death is the new asymmetric warfare waged against us.
Hunter Gathers
If Obama dares to open Pandora’s Box, the MSM, GOP and ‘centrist’ Dems will crucify him in order to Cover Their Asses.
ruemara
I’d support investigations and incarceration, just like single payer, I’d like to know how we could get anything else done while it’s happening and for about 3 months of aftermath. We need to do the right thing. We have an awful lot of people in power who want to do the evil thing and I don’t know how America can overcome this.
Jim
Agreed, even though I haven’t read the article yet. Unfortunately, it probably took something like this to provoke a Justice Dept investigation. And it’s going to take further pressure, I believe, from outside the Executive Branch. People like Wes Clark, Anthony Zinni, Joe Sestak (because of what Redshirt predicted), Bruce Fein and other anti-torture, pro-Constitution conservatives.
Jay in Oregon
@Redshirt:
I know you were speaking rhetorically, but just wanted to throw this list out there…
9/11
Richard Reid
The anthrax attacks
The DC Beltway sniper
The El Al shooter — I keep forgetting this one: http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/07/04/la.airport.shooting/
Interesting how a Bush administration official claimed that the El Al shooting was considered a criminal matter, not a terrorist act.
And worse, from the article:
Will
Well, if we consider a blanket ban on torture to be the liberal position and full-throated support of torture to be the conservative position, then torturing people to death and pretending that it was suicide is a good, solid moderate compromise.
Viva moderation!
Why oh why
Anton Sirius
@Hunter Gathers:
Well, if today’s special election proves that he’s a certified Carteresque one-termer, he’s got nothing to lose by taking them all down with him, does he?
Michael
Said it before, and I’ll say it again – I want a torturer registry.
The assholes who are morally corrupt enough to do it aren’t the sort of people I want living on my street.
freelancer
John Cole is shrill, and not a serious man.
Punchy
Clearly Cole hates the military.
Frank Chow
John, you just want the terrorists to win.
geg6
I don’t care about the political ramifications of investigating and prosecuting this. This is so outrageous and so completely off the reservation as to what this country is supposed to be and how we purport ourselves in the world, that I cannot imagine how we can ever go on with this weighing on our collective conscience. We must face up to what has been done in our names. We must. And anyone who says otherwise is someone who I can only conclude is perfectly happy to have this atrocity as a symbol of what we really and truly are.
inkadu
I can’t deal with this stuff any more.
It’s painful enough to know about. It’s unbearable when I consider the fact that’s it unprosecutable in a court of law, that no politician will take a stand on it, that most people, if they’ve even heard of it, don’t believe it, and the rest say it didn’t happen.
This torture stuff is the political equivalent of learned helplessness. What the fuck? I have to start a 30-year-long political movement to even acknowledge torture, much less punish it? Fuck this fucking country right in its ear.
Zifnab
It’ll be a centerpiece of the campaign season the moment it ramps up. And right now I don’t know if Obama has the SCOTUS judges he needs to make any ruling stick.
I’m not sure what would be worse, letting the administration officials slide, or watching them shielded from repercussion by a slick crew of insider lobbyist-lawyers.
Can’t we just… I don’t know? Lock them in a room with flashing lights and loud noises until they break down mentally and emotionally and just sign a confession? Then we can keep them in a secret prison on foreign soil for an indefinite period of time, and everyone will be happy.
Napoleon
I just knew this story had to be coming when I heard last year that the throats of these people had been cut out before the bodies were returned. I am sure that really endeared us to their relatives. “Here is the body of your loved one that died in our custody. I hope you don’t mind that we disfigured the corpse.”
Thoughcrime
We”re all in Room 101 now.
Corner Stone
But it was the politically pragmatic correct choice, wasn’t it?
spudvol
Justice is a pre-9/11 concept. Time to grow up and de-evolve.
SGEW
Again, for those who have the time (and the fortitude) for it, the original Seton Hall report can be found here (pdf).
srv
As always, it’s what is left unsaid.
Given at least two of the guys had no real decipherable connection to AQ and where probably going to be released, it doesn’t make any sense. Either:
1) Somebody at Camp No just went crazy and strangled them all. Doubtful, since other accounts imply beatings were done by groups on a single prisoner at a time – can’t believe a group would collectively go insane three times in a row.
2) They were killed as an example to derail other hunger strikers or encourage someone else to talk.
Given Obama’s track record on this, one has to assume torture is still going on, wink-wink, or by some other agency left unlisted. Good thing the administration has so discredited Mr. Yoo. /s
freelancer
OT – Holy Crap. Sully displays a modicum of self-awareness.
SGEW
@srv:
The object of torture is torture.
Hunter Gathers
@Anton Sirius: They won’t let him get even that far. They’ll do what Gingrich did in the 1990’s and shut down the government in order to keep that from happening. There are too many people in Congress on both sides who are tangled up in this for an investigation to even get the light of day. The MSM will not tolerate any discussion of torture prosecutions, out of fear that their stenography might destroy what is left of their credibility. This shit is untouchable for ten years.
KCinDC
I’m just waiting for the wingnuts to push the Overton window a little further and start getting into the media as a legitimate arguing position the idea that we should extend torture beyond terrorists to other heinous criminals like sex predators and serial killers (to protect the children!).
Bubblegum Tate
Don’t you realize that investigating Republicans is the exact same thing as starting Civil War II, John? WOLVERINES!
Morbo
I just think it’s ridiculous that the military apparently thought they could get away with it. Reading the part about the Saudi brigadier general of police I just shook my head at how anyone thought they could pull one over on him.
Persia
Didn’t they also use these ‘suicides’ to justify further crackdowns on the inmates?
KCinDC
@freelancer, considering how Sully refuses to give his “helpers” bylines, I’m wondering whether that remarkably sane post was actually written by him or someone else.
New Yorker
Given the amount of crap he gets around here, I’d like to remind everyone that Andrew Sullivan has been screaming from the rooftops about this for a long time. This, more than anything is what got him excommunicated from the right.
Zifnab
@KCinDC: You’re kinda behind the times there. One of Obama’s major accomplishments in the Illinois State Senate was getting compromise legislation that required all interrogations by police officers to be taped. This was specifically because some police officers would just beat the snot out of a suspect in order to get information or a confession.
TWP
@Johncole Wait, this is Obama’s fault? I thought nothing was his fault on this site. He did something wrong? You’re saying he should be doing something the DFH have been saying since “look forward, not backward”? I’m shocked!
Enough of the satire, I want to say I agree with you. This was a tactical, political and moral error on his part. You wanna win back a lot of liberals? Start investigating and prosecuting torture. Added benefit: it’s the right thing to do.
KCinDC
@Zifnab, right, but I haven’t yet heard a roundtable discussion on one of the Sunday shows with some conservative advocating that waterboarding suspected child molesters and drug dealers is perfectly constitutional.
The Raven
And only the DFH’s and the cranky libertarians have been saying this was a devil’s bargain Obama had made with the authoritarians, and saying it from the beginning.
Why don’t we respond in time?
jrg
Anyone remember when that pilot was captured and beaten by the Iraqis, while the media went on a righteous tirade about how barbaric Iraqis are?
Yeah, neither do they. Although, in defense of the people responsible, it’s OK for America to kill people in custody, because Jesus thinks we’re super-awesome.
MobiusKlein
I’m reading it now (stealing time) and it boggles my mind that Guantanamo would be allowed to have procedures that let the “delivering a pizza.” van through.
I’m still betting on the classified pardons – Cheney would be the asshole to invent that.
Hiram Taine
@Corner Stone:
This, a googolplex times this..
James K. Polk, Esq.
Whatever Cole.
Everyone knows that Gitmo is pretty much a tropical paradise.
Those stranglings are just like frat pranks.
Besides, torture works and is effective.
I’m going to go cry for the loss of our humanity now.
Redshirt
@Jay in Oregon: Of course I was being rhetorically. But like that matters – we all know precisely how this will play out.
Extreme outrage and hyperbole from the right; the MSM gives them the platform to metastasize this outrage; Teabaggers protest, WaPo says “Nation is against torture investigations”, BlueDogs and other “centrist Dems” publicly criticize the Pres; Lieberman holds a hearing on these outrages…… eventually, people back down, and the wingnuts move on to the next outrage.
BombIranForChrist
Hear, hear, John. Or is it here, here. Not sure.
I’m with you.
freelancer
@New Yorker:
I completely agree, in fact, I think he has been the lone voice in the media keeping the issue of torture from being drowned out of the headlines like a lot of other things that we no longer discuss (Iraq).
In the last few months, however, he has grown more self-aware about his propensity to fly off the handle, and instead of just publishing dissent, or saying “my tone was uncalled for, but my point remains” or some other such hedging, he now more frequently walks back mistakes he has made.
He is less tethered to an intransigent opinion, and seems a bit more humble in his writing as of late.
zhak
America has never been perfect — we’re human beings, we’ll make mistakes and sometimes behave badly. But we’ve never institutionalized torture before now, have we?
My knowledge of American history is woefully incomplete, but I do know a few things. George Washington, for instance, the “fave founding father” of both Palin & Beck, was adamantly against mistreatment of the enemy. I bet they gloss over that bit, since obviously a fight to establish a new nation is absolutely nothing compared with the War On Terror.
Likewise, the POWs we took during WWII were treated humanely, and much helpful — and accurate! — information was extracted from them by … chess matches. But, again, clearly the War on Terror has called for a seismic & perpetual shift in what America stands for. A ragtag handful (~1100 or so, I believe, around the time of the 9/11 attacks) of religious fanatics and their opposite numbers in the USA have done what Hitler et alia failed to do: change the very fabric of how we conduct ourselves.
If these people had been leading the country during WWII, we’d all be speaking an interesting mixture of German and Japanese right now.
MattMinus
You lefties are playing right into the terrorists hands. They deliberately allow themselves to be tortured to death as a form of asymmetrical warfare designed to weaken our resolve.
Apsaras
Not to mention the fact that we know that everyone in Guantanamo is the Worst of the Worst (registered trademark- Al Qaeda 2001-2010). Plus we have to get them back for kidnapping the Lindberg baby.
Jody
I agree, John.
The question now is: where do we go if and when he DOESN’T follow up?
Jim
@Redshirt:
In my mind’s eye, I can see Campbell Brown (-Senor), with very Concerned mien, ask Scott Horton, “But don’t we have to remember, these people were trying to prevent another 9/11, or something worse, from happening on American soil?”
Sloegin
The idea that these 3 deaths are the tipping point of moral outrage is fairly silly. Methinks you haven’t really been paying attention John, or that these murders somehow reboot your general outrage burnout.
You remember Abed Hamed Mowhoush don’tcha? (The air force general) If we did the same thing to high-ranking, legitimate, Iraqi prisoners of war and nobody cared, why do these outrages merit any special call to action?
Our crimes are leigon at this point.
ericvsthem
There is not a snowball’s chance in hell that anyone will ever stand trial for this latest atrocity. In fact, I highly doubt that anyone will lose their job or be asked to resign.
Alex S.
I guess you can try to look forward and forget all this, but it just keeps coming back. Sadly, Scott Horton’s article will not register with the mainstream media and it will not break into the public view. But just wait for the Sheikh Mohammed trial. We will have to go through the whole program to confirm his testimony.
Rock
Honestly, the electorate seems ready to repudiate the Democratic agenda tonight in Mass. And I have to think this act will be repeated elsewhere later this year. It astonishes me, but a majority of Americans are once again preferring Republican policies and governance. Why that is is probably a good topic for another post, but lets take for fact that this is true and that the Village meme is set (black Jimmy Carter, overreach, mistaken mandate even though that’s laughable after Bush claimed a mandate from 2000 and they bought in but whatever). Obama is effectively done and marking time till John Thune moves into the White House.
Given this, Obama should be unconstrained by political considerations and simply do the right thing. Investigate the previous administration. If the Democratic legislative agenda is lost, Obama should spend his remaining time doing whatever he can through House investigations and executive orders. Time to be brave.
southpaw
Where’s the John Yoo memo that says you can cut out the throats of dead men and keep them secret from their families?
How is this story not bigger news?
eastriver
I also agree with Glenzilla, 100%.
Not to pick too-tiny of nits, JC, but you blamed the Obama administration, as opposed to Obama himself. This decision was surely Obama’s to make. The blame/credit lies with him. He’s a constitutional lawyer. He knew exactly what he was doing.
Where I and you (and others, surely) will part paths, is that I believe Obama made the decision not to launch an investigation for purely political reasons. So he wouldn’t appear weak on terror, damage any dems caught up in Bush/torture approval process, etc.
That’s probably the most damning thing I can say about the man. (Not as egregious as Bush/Cheney torturing for political reasons — to get intel on WMDs to cover they’re war criminal asses — but still awfully damn egregious.)
New Yorker
Right, and German soldiers ran west in 1945 so they could surrender to the US and UK instead of the Soviets because they knew they’d be treated fairly.
In 1991, the Iraqis surrendered by the tens of thousands rather than fight, because they knew they’d be treated well. We lose 148 KIAs in that war. How many more would we have lost if the Iraqi Army fought to the last man? And how many future enemies WILL fight to the last man because they know that capture means torture and disappearance?
Mike from Philly
Yeah but, if we prosecute Bush era war criminals the Republicans will obstruct health care reform!
Barry
John: “Last year, I understood why, politically, the Obama administration chose to behave he way they did with the former administration, choosing to look forward rather than backwards. I didn’t like it at all, but I understood it.”
When a new chief comes in wtih his crew, there are two choices for guys doing dirty stuff – first, sweep it under the rug, destroy as much evidence as possible, and hope that nobody finds out.
Second, try to get the new crew involved as fast as possible, so that they have at least some dirt on them. This makes it harder for them to do anything, so hopefully they’ll delay. During the delay, get them dirtier. Before long, the new crew is down with the old crew.
My prediction last year was that the right would act as fast as possible to get Obama and his crew as dirty as possible, so that they’d have to take a hit. Frankly, after this last year, I don’t think that the right had to actually *do* anything themselves; Obama and his crew joined right in.
Martin
Practically, I don’t think it can be investigated until Gitmo is closed. To investigate it before that point effectively paralyzes the place and makes the investigation rather opaque and messy simply due to the nature of the place.
Once Gitmo is empty and closed, an investigation can then take place without thoroughly screwing up how we handle the people that were detained there.
I don’t like it, but investigating before you’ve fully addressed the problem sounds clusterfuckish.
Bulworth
@Napoleon:
Throats cut out? No, nothing to see here. Nothing out of the ordinary. Please move along.
Martin
@southpaw:
Nobody wants to hear that we’re capable of this, and that half of the nation voted in support of the guys that authorized it. It’s a taboo topic. Nobody wants to cast that first stone, as much as it needs to be cast. Personally, I’d like to see one of the more respected news guys pull the other organizations together and propose they all break it in unison. Nobody gets a scoop, but nobody gets hit for shitting on the nation either.
GregB
This story isn’t bigger news because 58% of Americans are on board with this inhuman garbage.
Who cares what happens to terrorists?
Wait’ll the people that have been calling the left the new Hitlers and Nazis get their chance to use this new and improved system of justice to exact their brand of justice on those who have “stolen America” and allowed terrorists to run amok.
President Obama should have been stomping this vile shit into the ground and instead he’s helped to entrench it into the legal system.
These tools and tactics will come home and they won’t be used on tea-partiers.
We’re all Chileans now.
-G
Sly
It isn’t, but neither really is the logical conclusion from applying the rule of law in the case of detainees who were denied human rights (release them). Legally it is. Morally, I’d say so. Strategically, it isn’t.
The ultimate failure of the Bush policy is that it put the entire legal structure of United States toward detainees into a straightjacket, starting with the proposition that anyone captured by military forces on foreign soil cannot be tried in civilian courts, whether they be American courts or an international court. Indefinite detention, then, becomes the logical result. We can’t try you, and we can’t release you, so we’ll just stick you in a whole somewhere under the rubric that you can be held until hostilities have ended.
This result is, the way I see it, completely impossible to unwind without causing multiple messes.
This has nothing at all to do with prosecuting the officials responsible for this policy, which I personally think must be done and for which I cut Obama zero slack. The notion of appointing to someone to AG from a division of the Justice Department that had absolutely shriveled on the vine during the Bush years is great, I will concede, and in almost every other aspect Holder was an inspired choice. But his office has done nothing to go after people who have openly violated the law. Obama getting political shit for such an outcome is largely irrelevant, because White House interference with DoJ proceedings amounts to Obstruction of Justice. Legally, the President can’t interfere. We almost impeached the last guy who did this, but he had the common courtesy to resign in disgrace first.
“Looking forward, not back” became intertwined with how to get out of the legal straightjacket, so here we are.
Fwiffo
It’s interesting that the official story really is that they stuffed rags down their own throats, then bound their own hands and feet, then hanged themselves. Apparently they removed and absconded with their own throats postmortem too. How asymmetrical of them.
Mark S.
@Rock:
Just take your pick of any of the threads with more than 200 comments, or wait around an hour or two for a new flame war on this subject to erupt.
As for the topic at hand, I think the meme that “these were just a few bad apples” pisses me off the most. This was the policy decided by the highest reaches of government, and it is criminal not to investigate it.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@freelancer:
Too bad that Chait (whose article Sully quotes) falls down at the very start of his article by in turn quoting Adam Nagourney as if A.N. is a mistaken but acting in good faith analyst. He (A.N.) isn’t. There is nothing done in good faith about his work. Naguourney is a water carrier and propagandist for power, like pretty much every other Villager out there.
And to tie back into the thread topic, that is why we are so fucked on the subject of prosecuting war crimes. Because our media are hopelessly broken, corrupt and evil. That’s right E-V-I-L. As in being apologists for torture and murder EVIL. We have the fricking Ministry of Truth running our TV and newspapers, and nobody can or is willing to take the microphone away from those bastards.
A lot of the things that need to be fixed in this country won’t get fixed until we take the old media and burn it to the ground, shoot the survivors, and sow the fields with salt.
Legalize
I guess if Coakley loses, thereby rendering the Dems’ super-majority in the Senate to a mere 59 to 41 majority, none of Obama’s agenda will get through anyway (not that any of it really will with a super-majority as we’ve seen). Seems to me that Obama can use this as a stick, and let Holder off of any leash he was ever on. If Obama can’t clean up the last 8 years via legislation, he can clean it up by perp-walking the fuckers responsible.
moe99
@Michael
We can’t even get the names of folks who signed the petition in WA state to deny gays their rights–which was voted down last election–and you want a torture registry? Dream on!
Martin
@Sly:
And this is why I think it can’t be done until Gitmo is closed. At that point anyone who was there has been moved into a state that has a clearly established set of procedures – either they are in the civilian justice system, they’ve been shipped home or elsewhere and are no longer under our influence, or they are in some military/other system with rules that have been codified.
Further, you have the problem of investigations being hampered in a group setting. Anyone involved with Gitmo needs to be scattered to the winds for any investigation to go anywhere. I think they learned that with investigations of police corruption.
cleek
it won’t be.
some things are de facto outside the law.
asiangrrlMN
@cleek: Sadly, I agree with you. I don’t see it happening.
@geg6: I read it, finally, and it broke my heart. I know you were consumed by rage, but I am filled with overwhelming grief. My country did this in my name. Mine. I’m in tears over this. I mean, I knew it was happening, but to read it in black and white makes it even more difficulty to let go.
@inkadu: Triple times this.
mogden
Anyone, and I mean ANYONE, involved in this despicable crime deserves the justice we meted out to the Nazis.
catclub
martin @ 60
Yeah, I can really see the Washington Times, NY Post, and WSJ and Fox News agreeing: “We all break this news of torture and murder by either a)US soldiers – Americas’ best and bravest or b)Contractors who are ex- military and heavily conservative Christian, – together and no backstabbing.”
No problem. They will even forget about anti-trust violations
by the liberals in the media before the meeting even starts.
Simple and clean break with the past.
John Cole
You have to be fucking kidding me.
I need a drink.
gex
@John Cole: You haven’t properly assigned blame until you include the long form birth certificate of who exactly you are blaming.
asiangrrlMN
@John Cole: No drinking whilst on drugs! Go to your happy place, preferably with Lily and Tunch by your side.
joes527
OK.
I was going to wank on about how this is all concern trollery, bad politics, bad optics, bad acoustics, and shrill.
…. but crap.
Better late than never Cole.
I’m off to cry for what we’ve lost.
El Cid
That would be proper. But if it doesn’t happen, what would anyone suggest to do? If Baloon Juice were organizing something to get justice done, what would it recommend doing?
matoko_chan
But the courage and honor of Sgt. Hickman and the scrupulous legal integrity of the Seton Hall law students fill me with hope.
Those are the real americans.
I think this is a lot like Watergate….there was a full bore press to ignore it in the beginning, but eventually the whole mess brought down a sitting president and blackened his name for eternity.
I think there is there is going to be a special prosecutor.
And a movie.
Who do you think will play Sgt. Hickman?
He’s my hero.
Riggsveda
DougJ in the last thread invited us to quote philosophers to rebuke Obama, but it seems especially appropriate here. It was Albert Schweitzer who pleaded: “Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight.”
eastriver
@John Cole:
Dude, n i c e retort.
Better make that drink a double, JC.
Obama can do no wrong. Only his administration. Obama himself can only do good. He’s progressive, fer fuck’s sake!
(Your too careful a wordsmith to write “Obama administration”, rather than “Obama.” That’s an old dodge. Perhaps it was inadvertent. But I think you’re being extra careful these days.)
woody
Prez Shamwow CANNOT prosecute the malefactors in this case for a variety of reasons, which I have rehearsed before:
1) Pragmatism (P.1). If Shamwow undertakes to get to the bottom of these murders, he will be in effect writing the warrant that the Pukes will use to come after him when his term expires.
2) Pragmatism (p.2): Remember JFK. He probably was killed on orders of Allen Dulles, for his effrontery in trying to rein in the CIA. If Prez. Shamwow actively prosecutes any CIA operatives, his life wouldn’t be worth a plug nickel.
3) Precedent: There is none for investigating, and prosecuting members of a departed regime for mal- or mis-feasance.
4) Even if it got to trial, all the defendants would have to do would be to plead that they were acting “in the national interest.” They’d either get off by straight acquittal or by jury nullification.
5) I doubt you could even empanel an objective jury. It only takes one juror who refuses to agree unanimously do derail a conviction. Still pretty close to 50% of the population would have returned Bushevik McCain for term 3.
Barry
The trick is that the GOP can stall the closing of Gitmo for years, and it just gets harder.
The g-d-d-mned thing for Obama to do is to man up, figure out what he and his guys can ethically do out of pure executive power, and start doing it. Get the g-d-f-cking-d-mned GOP to try to block, and tie their blockage up in the Senate.
Mnemosyne
@Jay in Oregon:
Actually, it was a criminal matter since the guy committed his crime on his birthday, two weeks after his wife left him and took the kids back to Egypt, and had no terrorist ties. It was, unfortunately, a not atypical shooting spree in America, except possibly for the choice of target.
The warbloggers were wetting their pants about it but the Bush administration was right and he was a lone nut who basically went there to commit suicide by cop (or, in this case, heavily armed El Al security guard).
Why oh why
Also, the question remains: why were those three detainees killed (if they were) the same night? And two of them at least were innocent, about to leave Gitmo.
Did they have some kind of evidence against the US government? Did one soldier just snap and killed them all? Or were they testing a new ‘waterboarding’-like technique that went wrong?
What was the motive, if those three men were murdered?
John Cole
@eastriver: You have seriously lost the fucking plot.
Obama is the head of his administration- it goes without saying that if the Obama administration does something wrong, Obama is to blame.
Manic progressives.
matoko_chan
The difference between Torturegate and Watergate is the world is watching……the rest of the world didnt give a sh*t about Watergate.
The New Globalism.
Obama made the right decision to try to pass on this cup of gall…..but Sgt. Hickman, a bunch of nerdy law school students, and the rest of the world are going to make America drink it.
Tsulagi
@Corner Stone:
Don’t forget, pick your battles but don’t pick any to keep your precious powder dry, the plate is full, and there aren’t 60 votes to do otherwise. Words to walk by; only unserious adults think otherwise.
No snark, though, on this comment in the article by Rear Admiral John Hutson (ret.)…
Yep.
No worries, in this event no doubt bad apples will be brought to justice. A few NCOs and maybe a low ranking officer. Again.
Joe Beese
So, John, when “the Obama administration” continues to do nothing about this “untenable” situation, what are you going to do about it?
scav
but let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
now.
flukebucket
Vote for Sarah Palin?
John Cole
@Joe Beese: I say we impeach him for Bush’s war crimes!
Hiram Taine
@John Cole:
Isn’t failure to prosecute war crimes a war crime in itself?
The Republicans would have no problem impeaching Obama for failure to prosecute Bushie while at the same time not prosecuting Bushie themselves.
Phaedrus
John, what’s this unreasonable hatred of Obama? Just because he isn’t prosecuting torturers as fast as you want, you want to hold the perfect the hostage to the good? You know who wins by this, the Republicans, that’s who, and if they win next election and start 15 new nuclear wars it will be your fault!
– welcome to the club, John.
Corner Stone
@Tsulagi:
A pragmatist always knows his limits in the art of the possible.
Corner Stone
@Phaedrus:
He doesn’t hate the player, he hates the game.
geg6
@asiangrrlMN:
I started out where you are. I’ve worked myself up into a fine lather at this point. I really am beginning to think that this country isn’t worth saving. Doesn’t make me wanna go vote GOP or anything, but it sure doesn’t make me want to vote at all (since Dems certainly don’t give a damn about this either). This country is a completely failed experiment. We should just admit it, cancel out the Constitution and all our treaties, and let the chips fall where they may. If it means some sort of dystopian Aldous Huxley nightmare, how does that really differ from where we are? I have my doubts that it does.
licensed to kill time
@John Cole: Dawg, you are funny, I mean that sincerely!
mutt
the two guys in the watch towers, who saw the trucks take the victims to Camp No, and spoke up about it will pay a much bigger price then those who set up the torture regime, murdered the “suspects”, and covered up the crime.
Or, a couple of low ranked guys will be scapegoated.
We dont torture, but we need more of it. That will be the wingnut mantra.
The Dims will do NOTHING.
We are ALL fuckin suspects, now.
Christ, I soldiered, in Viet Nam, and I saw what a sick outfit the US is. Nothing Ive seen since has disabused me of that view.
gex
@Corner Stone: Just so long as pragmatists keep in mind that they too help shape what is possible.
mclaren
On the contrary — torturing kidnap victims to death and then lying about it after grabbing ’em off the streets without charges and without trial represents the future of the American “justice” system.
Just wait till average citizens get hauled off the streets and held in torture chambers in local police stations, then get left on the roadside with their throats cuts and their mutilated genitals stuffed in the wound. Guatamala death squads, here we come!
When you abandon the rule of law, barbarism results. America has now descended into barbarism and, having sowed the wind, we will reap the whirlwind. Brace yourselves, buckaroos…the American justice system in the near future will be a prisoner without a name in a torture chamber without a cell number.
gex
@geg6: Not voting is exactly what the dirty players want. They want you to be disgusted and sit out. Then the teabaggers they’ve filled with hatred and nonsense, but motivated the crap out of, will rule the polling places. I understand the impulse, but it must be resisted.
John Cole
You all seriously do not get it, do you? I have never had a problem with criticism of Obama, and still don’t.
I have a problem with:
1.) people making shit up (ala Gruber is just like Williams and Gallagher, Obama hates the gay)
2.) criticism motivated by personal animus and PUMA like bullshit
3.) over-the-top criticism that includes magical thinking (all he had to do was use his bully pulpit and we would have single payer)
4.) criticism that pays no attention to political realities
5.) criticism that adopts right wing frames, and when you point it out, is followed by a moronic argument about the Overton window or some other bullshit
6.) criticism that makes no sense (napolitano should be fired!)
And Cornerstone, buddy, you can always vote for Hilary/Edwards/Nader in 2012.
asiangrrlMN
@geg6: God. I have thought this for the past eight years Now, it just seems that the muck is so woven into our fabric, I don’t see how to extricate ourselves from it all.
@gex: True this. However, I still think I will get more involved locally and see if we can get a Democratic governor elected for the first time since 1993. You with me?
@John Cole: Please don’t say all, Cole. Some of us do get it very much, indeed.
Corner Stone
@John Cole:
Unless Cheney is on the ticket.
Phaedrus
@John Cole
This is your trump card, isn’t it. Any discussion that shows just what a hash Obama’s choices have been, you simply say, “well, he had to deal with the political reality”.
I’ve heard it all before. I’m glad something finally turned your stomach enough to countenance criticism of Obama, but don’t pretend that all this shit and more wasn’t known months ago and you had a principled response until this morning, and this was just the last straw.
geg6
@gex:
Who, exactly, are these dirty players? And how, exactly, do you propose to distinguish them from those who I must guess you’d call the “clean” players? I don’t see anyone clean in this situation. No one. Not even you and me. The fact that we stand here, online and with this knowledge, wringing our hands, instead of burning down the Capitol Building, makes us just as complicit.
I’m over 50 years old. I thought I’d seen it all at this point in my life. I also thought I knew, intellectually, what had really happened to this country over the last 30 years that culminated in the W/Cheney crime syndicate. I thought, in 2006 and 2008, that I knew who the good guys were.
Well, I don’t any more. I don’t know a damn thing and I don’t recognize the country I’m living in. I don’t even recognize myself. I’ve never been a radical. I’ve never despaired so much that I think the country is doomed. I’ve never felt the desire to revolt. I do now.
Even old dogs learn new tricks. Doesn’t mean the new tricks are what the master would want, however.
And before the Obama-bots come in, raining fire and brimstone over my head, I’ll probably lose some of this righteous fury at some point and pull the lever for him in 2012. If we still have a country, a president, or elections at that point.
Corner Stone
@John Cole:
You didn’t get it at the time and you do not get it now.
Your “pragmatism” on this issue is my “deal with the devil”. And only one entity wins when you make a deal with the devil.
This was always going to come out. It could not stay hidden.
Now Obama faces the very real possibility of having to prosecute a couple low level soldiers and brush past the real architects. What will be the reasoning behind that decision? Pragmatism, political reality, bad moral compromise – whatever you want to call it.
Delaying this, or using the HCR (aka Republicans will block EVERYTHING if Obama does this) excuse was always going to lead to this.
eastriver
@John Cole:
I haven’t lost the plot (or narrative, which is what I think you actually mean).
You can’t really hold an administration to account. But you can hold an individual to account. It’s that simple.
Surely you see the difference between saying “the Obama administration fucked up” and “Obama fucked up.” If you don’t see the difference, well, I suppose the pain killers might be to blame. I’ll leave it at that.
Obama dropped the ball on any and all investigations of Cheney, Bush, Rummy, etc. Not Obama’s administration. OBAMA. You need to say the words. Not just imply them. Otherwise folks might accuse you of wielding weasely words.
eastriver
@Corner Stone:
Yes. Agree. /much nodding
Phaedrus
@geg6
– read/listen to Noam Chomsky and you’ll learn that this isn’t new, you’re just becoming aware. It’s just a phase, the disillusionment, a step along the way to independence. You’ll realize the Dem/Rep is just ping pong. But don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater – this is a good country with a good system. This is an opportunity to rebuild your understanding of our nation with new eyes, and once you do you’ll be prepared for all the howling of “purist” by the sheep.
geg6
@Phaedrus:
Honey, I was reading Chomsky when you were probably in diapers. It’s new for me, in that I never believed in being that cynical. I am now. And I honestly don’t believe there is any baby in that bath water. My eyes are old and worn out. They don’t see anything new at all on the horizon.
asiangrrlMN
@geg6: You know, this is where I feel that I, as a hardened cynic, have the advantage. I never had much delusions about our country or how exceptional we were. I never loved this country or whatever ideals we supposedly espoused. Therefore, while all this breaks my heart, it doesn’t surprise me. It isn’t beyond the pale for me (as to the cruelty we humans perpetrate upon each other). I didn’t have much faith in humankind to begin with, so I didn’t have much to lose. It sickens me and disgusts me, but it doesn’t really surprise me.
Barry
Tsulagi
“No snark, though, on this comment in the article by Rear Admiral John Hutson (ret.)…
With command authority comes command responsibility, he said. “If the heart of the military is obeying orders down the chain of command, then its soul is accountability up the chain.”
Yep.
No worries, in this event no doubt bad apples will be brought to justice. A few NCOs and maybe a low ranking officer. Again.”
I don’t disbelieve that there are a lot of good people in military leadership positions, but in terms of the way things are run, accountability is only for peons.
Then again, a military is always a reflection of society, isn’t it?
Phaedrus
@geg6
Could be… could be :) He’s been documenting this a long time – how does he do it, year in year out, without just ripping his heart out, all in the face of “serious” people who defend the “US is #1” meme?
But he says he’s optimistic, and I find I am as well.
gex
@geg6: I think there are people who deliberately poison the discussion. People who for instance, call living will counseling “death panels” that will “decide who lives or dies”. I’d call them dirty players – it was never an honestly held position.
I guess you can equate yourself and myself with those people, if you want, although I take exception. I still think that there are SPECIFIC people with SPECIFIC goals who benefit by decent people being turned off from the political process. You are welcome to think differently.
Tsulagi
@Barry: Just remember, the top of the chain in the military is civilian leadership.
scudbucket
@geg6: Well, if you want to play that game, I was reading Chomsky while I was in diapers. One thing any reader of Chomsky new about the Obama admin was that they wouldn’t roll back the unitary executive stuff: no president (qua president) would use his power to reduce his power. Another thing that a Chomsky-reader saw pretty clearly: there would be no withdrawl from Iraq. Another thing, that war crimes investigations would be unlikely. Again, it runs counter to the institutional purpose of the executive branch to investigate transgressions committed by the executive branch. I’m sure you know all this, but maybe a reminder of just how awful things really are will make you feel better about the few goodies Obama has thrown our way.
Mnemosyne
@Phaedrus:
WTF do you mean, “Finally”? John has been ranting about this pretty much since the inauguration.
The fact that he can keep two ideas in his head at the same time — we need to be pragmatic on health care, we need to prosecute torture — doesn’t mean he hasn’t been criticizing Obama on this for months now.
Jesus, I’m sick of you johnny-come-latelies who don’t have any fucking idea what you’re talking about except that John hurt your fee-fees by talking smack about healthcare so now you’re going to accuse him of never talking about something that he’s posted about every other goddamned week.
mey
I’m sure someone will blame this on Obama, when we all know it’s the Progressives fault. So sick of them and their whining. We have more important things to deal with, we need to show a united front, we can’t be doing that whole circular firing squad (unless it’s shooting the DFH, because that doesn’t count).
Rick Taylor
Can you imagine what we’d think or do if some other country did this to our citizens? Kidnapped them, imprisoned them for years, tortured them, killed them, covered it up, and the returned the bodies mutilated with parts missing.
geg6
@scudbucket:
Well, I guess you only knew those things after reading Chomsky if you accepted his point of view as the only correct one. As I said above, I found Chomsky to be very cynical. I was against becoming such a cynic. And that doesn’t even begin to take into account his anarchist leanings or his libertarian-sockialism.
I still don’t think Chomsky knows it all. I’ll never be an anarchist or a sockialist But I’m with him on the cynicism.
Edited to add: And damn it, I’m blaming Chomsky for me being too stupid to remember the damn moderating filter.
Thoughtcrime
@GregB:
Some already have: http://www.prisonplanet.com/sonic-weapons-used-in-iraq-positioned-at-congressional-town-hall-meetings.html
http://www.infowars.net/articles/february2008/270208sound.htm
It must be because we “hate our freedoms” too.
Corner Stone
@gex:
I would disagree. As we’ve been instructed, a master pragmatist is essentially powerless in the shaping of pretty much anything. In the art of the possible the pragmatist has relatively few tools and must rely on others to shape the constructs of the eventual outcome. If the pragmatist were to intervene in any way then s/he would no longer be a pragmatist but an advocate. And advocates do not prioritize the art of the possible as highly as pragmatists. Yes, it’s part of the calculus but an advocate cares more about *the* outcome where a pragmatist cares more about *an* outcome.
Where a pragmatist really shines is in the outcome phase. Having achieved *an* outcome the pragmatist’s task in the art of the possible is complete. Because now *the* outcome is the new definition of what was possible.
scudbucket
@geg6: I still don’t think Chomsky knows it all.
No, I agree. That’s right. And there is some tension in his writing anyway: that certain big institutional structures are impervious to social activism, and yet the remedy for our problems is social activism. This isn’t a straightforward contradiction, but some people read him that way. I do think that, independently of whether one accepts Chomsky’s views about the aims and goals of US policy, a quick glance at US history would suggest the unlikelihood of a serious investigation into potential war crimes committed by the executive branch. It could happen, but other big players (not just the Obama DOJ) would need to get on board.
El Cid
FWIW, Chomsky has never wanted to be the only person you rely on for analysis, and he explicitly and repeatedly says he’s not good at organizing and that you ought to pay most attention to the people who seem really knowledgeable about that.
wilfred
And if not? Unless you’re willing to go to the wall on this there’s no point in even mentioning it. The buck stops with Obama; he won’t do a fucking thing.
The Arab press used to wonder how prisoners in the most heavily guarded facility on earth where prisoners where under the Gaze for 24 hours a day could manage to commit suicide. We never did.