Be nice if we, as a nation, had the moral authority to speak out about this:
Former detainees and defectors have identified the locations, agencies responsible, torture methods used, and, in many cases, the commanders in charge of 27 detention facilities run by Syrian intelligence agencies, Human Rights Watch said in a multimedia report released today. The systematic patterns of ill-treatment and torture that Human Rights Watch documented clearly point to a state policy of torture and ill-treatment and therefore constitute a crime against humanity.
Thanks to Bush, Cheney, Yoo and others, it would just be gauche if this former torture regime spoke out against what is happening in Syria.
Mark S.
Maybe Yoo could do some consulting work over in Syria. Assad certainly ascribes to the unitary executive theory.
Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
Yes, well, too bad that people like Bush, Cheney, Yoo and others like them won’t see how what we’ve done is anything like what’s happening in Syria. I’d bet anything that some undead Bush the Younger flunky will show up sometime in the next few days to tell the world how awful Syria is. We’re good. They’re bad. That’s all there is to it. Goodness or badness are innate qualities that you either have or you don’t. It doesn’t matter what you do, only what you are. If you’re good, you can do anything and you can defend yourself by telling everybody that your’re a “good person”. If somebody else is bad, it doesn’t matter how much good they might do, you can wave them away as unworthy since they’re “bad people”.
General Stuck
But Obama still renditions people, don’t he?
not motorik
Don’t exclude Barack Obama from this list.
He’s allowed American war criminal torturers to escape punishment.
It’s his single biggest moral failing.
David Hunt
I’m not sure how you say it in Arabic, but I’m pretty sure that the proper word, once translated from Politicese into the English is “torture.”
ETA: Sorry that was a cheap shot and posted without thinking. That was, of course, one of Cole’s points and he didn’t need me to restate it.
Baud
According to Google Translate:
scav
@Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.): well, that is how you explain that some soldier’s service is patriotic while others’ service shouldn’t be discussed, if not actively booed. See also the importance of adultery to those among the pre-forgiven or the must be shamed from office as unclean! unclean! unfit!
smintheus
@Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.): Or they may crawl out from under their rocks to contrast the relatively more brutal Syrian techniques to their own (more ‘markless’) techniques, and claim that shows that “we” never tortured.
Of course there is overlap in the Syrian techniques (hooding, disorientation, stress positions), which ought to make Americans more not less ashamed.
JGabriel, Statist Minded Ideologue of the Left
John Cole @ Top:
Which is why the Obama administration should have pursued charges against Bush, Cheney, and anyone else in the chain of command authorizing torture or enhanced interrogation tactics.
Since we never pursued those charges, they are now the country’s sin, rather than the atrocities of a few heedless, irresponsible, and sadistic leaders.
.
smintheus
@scav: Not to mention those like McCain who commit adultery while in the service.
BGinCHI
Do as we say, not as we do. Or we will drone you.
What did I leave out?
smintheus
@JGabriel, Statist Minded Ideologue of the Left: You know we all could have demanded Bush’s and Cheney’s impeachment when it came out that they were torturing prisoners. It’s not like the American public never knew what was going on in our camps.
Phil Perspective
For those that have it: one of those former detainees, which we helped render during the W. years, is on the Twitter machine. He’s a must follow.
Baud
@BGinCHI:
That’s pretty much it. There is no shame in international politics. The Chinese have made statements condemning our human rights policies, just as we have with respect to theirs.
David Hunt
@General Stuck:
Villago Delenda Est
We put Germans and Japanese to death after WWII for the things Bush, Cheney, Yoo, and Addison did.
Just sayin’.
Ron
@Phil Perspective: Hard to follow someone if you don’t know what their account is.
General Stuck
They are keeping Cheney alive to plug into Sky Net when the time is right. As for Bush, liberals want to put a retard in prison? Not on my watch.
General Stuck
@David Hunt:
I was a snarkin”.
serge
I heard an interview on NPR about an hour ago with a rep from HRW. One of his examples of the depravity of the Syrians was that of a twelve year old boy who’d had his fingernails torn off with pliers. Simply incredible. At least our torture methods are “enhanced.”
currants
@General Stuck: that was my impression….
ETA “extraordinary”–as another commenter noted. More to the point, has this admin renounced torture in fact?
General Stuck
@David Hunt:
Most of the cases of extraordinary rendition is for suspected criminals that regular extradition/rendition processes would pose security risk and the host country just looks the other way. Like with Eichmann, and some drug lords in the past, as I understand it.
David Hunt
@General Stuck:
Oops. Guess I guess I Poe’s Law got me. Sorry
General Stuck
Whatever you want to call it, what Bush did was snatch people off the streets and send them either to a US torture chamber, or some other country that could do the work for free, at least free of the Bushies getting their hands dirtier than they already were.
Ruckus
@smintheus:
Of course there is overlap in the Syrian techniques (hooding, disorientation, stress positions), which ought to make Americans more not less ashamed.
Where do you think we got the handbook?
General Stuck
@David Hunt:
no problemo
Steve in DC
You can’t blame Bush without blaming Obama as well, we are still doing it, often doing worse things. We just classify them differently, ala “anybody hit by a bomb was an insurgent” under Obama. Plus, the left suffers from “it’s ok if you are a Democrat” when it comes to these sorts of issues.
Calouste
@Ruckus:
Where do you think they got the handbook?
Turgidson
@Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.):
That’s what these dipshits already do. They’re Republicans.
McCain’s campaign used to prattle on and on about “honor” while flinging steaming piles of rhino feces at Obama and anyone else who dared question their “honor.” As if the “honor” came first, and by definition made anything he did “honorable.” That’s how pretty much the entire party has operated, since 2000 at least, and really since Tricky Dick. An “ends justify the means” approach, rationalized as “America/GOP can never be wrong because it/we are good by definition.”
And Obama, despite being the wholesome family man they claim to revere, and not having any scandals to his name (Issa-created bullshit and firebagger pony butthurt don’t count in this tally), is still pure evil. Because the evil part came first.
Heliopause
It goes beyond mere hypocrisy, the U.S. has rendered prisoners to Syria with the full knowledge that it was a brutal, torturing regime.
smintheus
@Ruckus: Presume that’s a rhetorical question, but just in case it’s not, the most important direct influence was the Soviet/North Korean model of torture. Ultimately that traces back to western European colonial powers’ torture methods, especially the French and to a lesser degree the English torture regimes.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
@serge:
I heard an interview on NPR about an hour ago with a rep from HRW. One of his examples of the depravity of the Syrians was that of a twelve year old boy who’d had his fingernails torn off with pliers. Simply incredible. At least our torture methods are “enhanced.”
Ripping people’s fingernails off, although barbaric torture, doesn’t kill them. People have died under American “enhanced interrogation”.
I guess the difference between depravity and not-depravity is the presence of an American flag to wipe up the blood.
smintheus
@Heliopause: Yes, as the US also did with Egypt and Libya.
David in NY
Sometime when people aren’t giving all their spare change to Democrats, they should drop some to the Center for Constitutional Rights, which does more good work in this area than anybody.
General Stuck
OT
The hits, they just keep rolling in.
SteveinSC
@Villago Delenda Est: I’m in for the hanging of Bush, Cheney, and particularly Yoo, that asshole. As a warm-up for the crowd, the disbarrment pf Dershowitz would be good. As I said at the time, we have to haul this crowd before some legal body to have a hope of expunging this stain on the honor, good name and moral authority of the US. Obama said lets move on. Now its gone forever. Also, too, Syria was our friend and they have the evidence for the renditions, maybe from both presidents. So go a bit easy there. Might not like what they send to Assange.
Bill
جون يو
Chris
@Horrendo Slapp (formerly Jimperson Zibb, Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.):
Shorter Bush admin: it’s not what we do but who we are underneath that defines us.
pluege
blatant, abject hypocrisy never stopped a republican; it won’t stop bush, cheney, yoo, et al.
the republican personality is an abomination, a human tragedy, a monstrous defective mutation of otherwise astounding potential.
Tonal Crow
“Republican Guard”, or, for short, “Republican”.
Chris
FORMER?! WTF?
rda909
Bradley Manning, bitchezz! Booyah, and Dronezzz! Hell yeah, now sign my online petition!
Linda Featheringill
@General Stuck:
Stericycle? The medical waste people.
I read an article about that. Apparently Bain made almost 50 million in profit from that company.
They did more than dispose of tissue from abortion centers. They handled contaminated uniforms, tissue from surgery, sponges with bodily fluids, etc.
But 50 million is a lot of money to me.
I really don’t know if the fundies will be able to tolerate Romney making a profit off of abortion, though.
Raven
@smintheus: Spanish were fair at it.
Davis X. Machina
@Linda Featheringill:
Don’t worry. Money is their real God. The God That Sucked.
Bill Murray
Didn’t we rendition Maher Arar to Syria? even the Harper government recognized Arar’s rendition was wrong. of course the US is still mostly cowering behind state secrets.
lol
Charging Bush et al: Who believes they’d actually be *convicted* and go to prison? Seriously people.
Any positive fee-fees that would be felt by the Left for Obama trying would be far outweighed by the impact of them being found “Not Guilty” by a jury of their peers. I’m joking about the positive fee-fees of course because despite saying they’ll reward it, the Left *never* *ever* gives credit for “trying”.
So it’s a worse outcome that carries huge political risks. Obama had to burn political capital like crazy to pass just a small part of his agenda. Obama would be running with ZERO accomplishments right now if he had tried to prosecute.
Political realities are what they are. I’m surprised this needs to be pointed out.
Fluke bucket
@Steve in DC: I never understood why anybody was surprised when they found out we torture. We did before Bush. We did during Bush. And we still do. I think it was dumb as hell to put it out there as being perfectly acceptable but as it turns out a great portion of the legal community agreed. Live and learn I guess.
Tonal Crow
@lol: The issue is not “positive fee-fees that would be felt by the Left”. The issue is permitting a self-admitted war criminal to remain unprosecuted. That sends the message that we tolerate war crimes and war criminals. That will only increase the amount and virulence of war crimes worldwide.
If a war criminal is prosecuted but acquitted — despite heavy evidence of guilt — the sovereign has done its job. That a jury chooses to nullify the law does not undermine the prosecution, though it does brand the members of the jury as idiots — at best.
tybee
@BGinCHI:
you left out “freedom isn’t free”
tybee
@General Stuck:
“As for Bush, liberals want to put a retard in prison?”
i think handing him over to the iraqis for questioning would be rather appropriate.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
i think a fantastic movie would be a political thriller about an imaginary plot by dead eye dick and the turd blossom posse to train people to be waterboarded on sunday talk shows and cable news, and then proclaim afterwards that it wasn’t torture.
Sal
@Bill Murray:
Exactly what I thought when I heard this story. Just proves you are a man of true wisdom and insight, Bill. Not sure if it counted as off shoring or outsourcing, though.
JPL
What does FOX News say? The morning crew seem to be able to define what is and what isn’t torture.
TenguPhule
Not turning a blind eye while France snatched up Cheney, Rumsfield, Bush, Yoo and Rice for trial at the Hague on the other hand, that was a true sin.
TenguPhule
Film it and it would be a summer blockbuster.
General Stuck
Balloon Juice has half a thousand front pagers, and not one of them can be bothered to put up an open thread. And it’s Tuesday to boot. I got a fresh Charlie pick just leaping to get posted
SteveinSC
@lol:
I don’t know, taking Yoo and maybe Little Mousy Bremer, Alberto Gonzales and kind of squeezing their testicles a bit, not enough for organ damage don’t you know, would have made me happier. But not as anyone could see. Maybe free airfare to Syria, that kind of thing. You don’t have to arrest Dick and W., just torment their small fry at the Hague. Maybe a CIA Dick or two. Obama would still have his ACA, the country would be on the road to restoring its honor and good name and the irredentist left would be more forthcoming for Obama’s re-election.
Brachiator
@JGabriel, Statist Minded Ideologue of the Left:
It is not clear that Obama could do this independent of the Congress.
And certainly, the Congress and the American people had opportunities to stop Bush and Cheney, but we didn’t. Moral culpability in a democracy is a tougher nut than people admit.
As an aside, this is the 50th anniversary of Algeria gaining independence. Some Western military leaders who use or taught torture cut their teeth on brutality during this struggle.
I was listening to the BBC program, “From our own correspondent,” on this. Some French people still believe that France could have won if only they had fought harder. Sound familiar?
They also interviewed a woman who volunteered to plant bombs. She was only 14 at the time. A bomb went off prematurely and she lost her legs. But she is still unapologetic about killing French men and women, and her own people who were not on her side.
War is always nasty business. Torture is added atrocity for no benefit. Despite some weak BS claims about its effectiveness in Algeria, the evidence and testimony is that it achieved nothing.
salacious crumb
..but..but…Obama protects the reproduction rights of American women..so what if he allows the rendition of a few brown men to Syria to get tortured? big fuckin’ deal…get over it.
gocart mozart
@serge:
At least they didn’t crush his testicles.
or,
At least they didn’t sign him up for SCHIP Insurance!
Steve Crickmore
If the US spoke up, whose side would we take? The defectors and the whistleblowers of the Syrian intelligence police, or the henchmen in the state security apparatus themselves. It is not exactly a moot point as the Obama administration
Steve Crickmore
If the US spoke up, whose side would we take? The defectors and the whistleblowers of the Syrian intelligence police, or the henchmen in the state security apparatus themselves. It is not exactly a moot point as the Obama administration
Caz
So it’s Bush’s fault that Obama can’t/won’t speak out against the torture going on in Syria today?? You’re saying that, since Bush employed torture here during his tenure, that Obama is precluded from speaking out against it now, otherwise it would be lacking in tact. Do I have that right?
Concerning the economy, Bush screwed it up so badly that Obama is still cleaning up his mess, right?
On Iraq and Afghanistan, we’re still there because Bush got us so entrenched that Obama is still trying to untangle that mess and extricate us from it, right?
Our national debt is at a record high because Bush screwed up the fiscal situation so badly that Obama still needs to keep spending in order to fix it, right?
Isn’t there a statute of limitations on how long Bush can be blamed for the current president’s failures? I guess according to you there’s not.
Do you ever get tired of making excuses and blaming others for Obama’s failures?
I mean, you are a grown man, after all, so one would think you would have learned by now in life that you take responsibility for things when you’re in charge. And that losers make excuses and winners find a way.
Does it occur to you how pathetic this post is, that you’re complaining about the lack of Obama’s opposition to the torture in Syria and saying that it’s Bush’s fault?
Perhaps I’m just not very observant, and what you’re really doing is being sarcastic and making a joke that everything Obama is screwing up is still Bush’s fault. If that’s the case, then excuse my rant, above, and accept this LOL in its place.
Try screwing up at work really bad next week at several things and telling your boss that it’s all your predecessor’s fault. See how that goes over.
In your little fantasy world, when Barack can’t get it up in bed, he turns to the first lady and states, “Sorry hun, but it’s really not my fault – George is to blame!”
The only thing required morally from Obama on this issue is for him to speak out against what’s wrong regardless of what anyone else may or may not have done or said at any time, past or present.
That Obama has failed to speak out against it reflects solely on Obama’s priorities, values, and focus. The same way that you’re blaming of Bush for everything Obama screws up reflects solely on your dishonesty and lack of integrity.
But your posts continue to entertain, so I applaud you for that!
Yutsano
@Caz: tl;dr.