ACLU head: U.S. torturers should be pardoned. At least it will be clear they committed crimes. http://t.co/qRPkCMvvMZ pic.twitter.com/7ATW8QN4Rk
— NYT Opinion (@nytopinion) December 8, 2014
If anyone deserves a pardon over this torture report, it's the guy who blew the whistle & gave the info to reporters. He's in jail.
— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) December 9, 2014
The Most Gruesome Moments in the CIA ‘Torture Report’ http://t.co/ubZgcmhUI4 via @shaneharris, @timkmak
— JonathanCohn (@JonathanCohn) December 9, 2014
… While the CIA has said publicly that it held about 100 detainees, the committee found that at least 119 people were in the agency’s custody.
“The fact is they lost track and they didn’t really know who they were holding,” the Senate aide said, noting that investigators found emails in which CIA personnel were “surprised” to find some people in their custody. The CIA also determined that at least 26 of its detainees were wrongfully held. Due to the agency’s poor record-keeping, it may never be known precisely how many detainees were held, and how they were treated in custody, the committee found….
The Real Torture Debate
Is the One We're Not Having –>
https://t.co/NrArlFMFVK
— Billmon (@billmon1) December 9, 2014
If every time a torture defender says it works, you imagine "bc provided key propaganda" debate will make more sense
https://t.co/j9lMeEcRwi
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) December 9, 2014
The Senate Torture Report basically absolves everyone but the CIA of complicity in this outrage.
— Joshua Holland (@JoshuaHol) December 9, 2014
.@chinahand Whereas the dirtiness of the CIA is essentially a pop culture cliche by now. Agency has become the modern "sin eaters."
— Billmon (@billmon1) December 9, 2014
"Don't call it torture"… https://t.co/PMEhm4gkCx Battle of Algiers
— kambiz foroohar (@kambizf) December 9, 2014
From the NYTimes updating “Reaction to CIA Torture Report” blog, at 3:30 this afternoon:
The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, does not want to talk about torture.
Mr. Comey served as deputy attorney general during the Bush administration and endorsed a legal memo authorizing interrogation tactics like waterboarding, stress positions, and more than a week of sleep deprivation for C.I.A. prisoners.
At a news briefing on Tuesday, Mr. Comey made it clear that he did not want to revisit those days.
“I’m sure everybody is focused on the interrogation report, or whatever it’s called, that came out today,” Mr. Comey said. “Two things are true: I haven’t read it. And second, I’m the director of the F.B.I., and this doesn’t really relate to us.”
Mr. Comey, who has said he now believes waterboarding is torture, was asked if he had any regrets about his role.
“I’m not going to go back and talk about my prior roles,” he said. “Maybe when I’m old and gray I can talk about it.”
Keith G
It will be interesting to see how big the public reaction to this grows. This is a very unique episode in American history.
I wish that the administration (that means Obama, BTW) felt it is their duty to pursue this, clean the rot, and set the rock solid precedent for at least a few generations that this is not how our government behaves.
But, alas….
Corner Stone
This is the guy everyone here completely committed to being a perfect choice for leading the FBI.
Mainly because Obama nominated him.
Corner Stone
@efgoldman:
Why? Everyone knew who he was at the time, including Obama.
Now he’s going to get squeamish about the guy he nominated.
skerry
My FB timeline has been very quiet about the report. Eerily quiet.
Baud
@Corner Stone:
I agree. There’s nothing new here that implicates Comey, as far as I can see.
Baud
@skerry:
As I said in an earlier comment, they are still figuring out which Democratic constituency to blame.
Keith G
@Corner Stone: Not everyone, kemo sabe.
KG
@skerry: so has mine. i posted a link to Sullivan’s “live blog” without comment. and the only other thing i’ve seen is from a friend from law school (USMC JAG) that linked to the “rebuttal” website. otherwise, nothing.
skerry
@Baud: You are probably right. Sigh.
Howard Beale IV
The sad aprt is I think that if a GOP president wins in 2016 the first thing they’ll do is pardon the whole lot of ’em. Worse still, the 50+ countries listed as being somewhat involved probably won’t lift a finger in shipping these sub-humans off to The Hague.
Too bad Udall didn’t have the stones to make real lasting change. For that he’ll just be a footnote.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
I think it’s because the Republican messaging machine can’t decide between “Torture, fuck yeah! It’s a mistake we aren’t still doing it,” “The report is a Democratic calumny against the CIA,” and “Obama is endangering Teh Troops(TM) by releasing this.”
Baud
There is a very aggressive redirect ad on the mobile site tight now.
danielx
Vicious circle indeed. In fact, any picture that includes Dick Cheney ought to have the word “vicious” included in the legend or description of the picture.
Mike in NC
@Keith G: Public reaction will be a collective yawn while waiting for the new season of Duck Dynasty.
Baud
I meant “right now.”
RaflW
Fuck you, you speck of shit.
I am utterly outraged at the hubris and the sheer moral collapse of torture fans still working for our government. Fucking fuckballs.
I usually give Obama a pass on things, but hiring this loaf of offal was a huge mistake. Former Bush deputy att’y general. Heckuva job, Barack.
Keith G
@Roger Moore: And it might be that many of them are, for the moment, just as shocked and dismayed by the details as most normal humans.
For the moment.
Howard Beale IV
For everyone’s names who were redacted as approvers and participated in this whole sordid affair in the CIA’s report, may you suffer the fate mentioned by Vir Cotto.
scav
They might need a brief pause to digest that their vaunted You Can’t Deal with the Truth 24-hour Heros and the caped superman program keeping them ‘Mercan Exceptionionally 100% SuperSafe was apparently run like a cobbled together lemonade stand managed by innumerate toddlers that were admittedly unprepared, confused their lemons with kale and cabbages and have no idea how many glaases there should be.
srv
Let’s just all agree everyone is a victim here.
There were over a 100 dead in custody back in 2005. How did people think they died, tickling?
beltane
@skerry: My FB feed has also gone silent on the issue. None of these people are wingnuts and several of them are to the left of the people who post here. In their case, they are probably afraid of saying anything on FB.
Roger Moore
@Keith G:
I considered that possibility, but it seems rather far fetched. I find it much more likely that many of them are busy enjoying the report with a stack of handkerchiefs and a large bottle of hand lotion.
Howard Beale IV
@RaflW: Quite frankly, if I was the Cubans I’d bomb the living shit out of the base and put everyone out of their miseries and end the US occupation as being illegal.
Little Boots
@efgoldman:
maybe. okay probably. it’s hard to get the american people to care about anything, least of all torturing “enemies.”
Tenar Darell
@Baud: wowsa, yes. i had to break out my laptop.
Ernest Pikeman
@Baud: Yeah, the mobile site is unusable for me (FFox beta on Android) – it just redirects to an empty page. Title says “Advert”, that’s all.
Thanks Cole for monetizing the synergies!
Mike G
What, a government program run by Bush Assministration ideologues who hate government and love grifting, was in disarray? Color me surprised.
NotMax
John Brennan is walking perilously close to crossing the line into insubordination with his statements.
News people have read or listened to this far have been unanimous in leaving George Tenet’s name out of the story, which I can but interpret as a deliberate choice or tactic.
Spent years and years blogging about and aggregating reportage on this topic (among other things) under the headline of “What Have We Become?” Would that could provide links aplenty, but had two different blog hosting companies go belly up and disappear without warning.
Kyle
Fux News watchers are Shocked and Angry at these great crimes…of releasing details about the torture they lustily cheered for.
The torture itself is their fap material.
Major Major Major Major
Yeah I’ve posted about this more today than everybody else on my FB feed combined. And I’ve posted two things.
Lots of cute dog pictures though. It’s hard to even find good coverage anywhere but here and Sully.
Tehanu
No particular brief for the CIA, but the people who gave them their orders are just as guilty. And we all know who those people were.
Culture of Truth
@Roger Moore: Exactly. Right now GOPi s all “torture is great and we should do more” and Obama revealed our isolated torture harming America!1!!***
** also torture works also it’s old news
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman:
Interesting choice of words in a thread on torture. Just saying.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: I think that option is less fraught.
mclaren
Au contraire. We need a Secretary of Torture as a cabinet position, a Torture Czar and of course National Torture Day.
Suffern ACE
@Keith G: It will be interesting to see how big the public reaction to this grows. This is a very unique episode in American history.<
My guess, we'll just get angry at whomever brings it up, like we do against anyone who in ambivalent about Columbus Day. Hate the torture? that's just multicultural pomo PC gibberish.
Mnemosyne
I liked how Billmon tied the torture report together with other current events in his Storify:
MobiusKlein
For the mobile sitejacking, turn off Javascript.
srv
Where the hell is Romney? Can he not get a 10 second soundbite on Fox to rage “I’LL DOUBLE TORTURE!”
As the village has said all week – THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE!
You don’t WIN by being more milquetoast than Jeb, Mitty.
eemom
@Omnes Omnibus:
This thread isn’t about torture. It’s about a bunch of dipshits parading their righteous outrage, like every other thread on this topic today.
/nope, nobody’s forcing me to read this blog
NotMax
At long last, have they no sense of shame?
Extremely sadly, no.
Tommy
I think it was 1974. My dad was a professor at the Army War College. I must have been about 6-7. Dad took me to the “Great Hall”‘ to tell me I was going to see a “great American speak.” Some of my earliest memories. McCain rocked the place. The longest stand ovation by like a factor of five I’ve ever heard. Since that day I’ve thought the man wasn’t tortured for days, weeks, or months. Years! He was an American hero! I can’t stand him but ……………..
If there is ever a person you should listen to on a topic, McCain might be the one on a topic like this. The guy is bat shit crazy on almost everything, not this topic. If that doesn’t make you take note I don’t know what else will.
We’re reading the Report on CIA abuses and watching Homeland. That shit was actually done to McCain!
Maybe we should listen for a few mintues!
Mike J
@Ernest Pikeman:
Works fine for me, with a caveat. I have noscript (mobile) installed. ballooon-juice.com is whitelisted to run javascript, but nmcdn.us is not allowed to. Try that.
Violet
Driving home from the airpot today turned on Nice Police Republicans to see what their coverage of it was. Top of the hour rundown of news. Led with the torture report, but hedged calling it torture, leading with calling it “interrogation techniques,” but mentioning it was being called the “torture report.” Then got some CIA guy to say how torture was too helpul, you guys! People just don’t understand! That took abuot 20 seconds.
Then something burned in Los Angeles. Might be arson.
Markets were more or less unchanged.
And that’s the news. Moving on.
Major Major Major Major
@Violet: All Things Considered had Wyden on for a pretty long segment around 5.
Violet
@srv: Speaking of Jeb, I wonder how the release of this report is going to impact his potential candidacy.
Valdivia
It has been interesting to see some of the Village people and others actually remember what the Bush years were like. All the destruction he caused. For 6 years now they have been screaming to the heavens about the 55 different Obama’s Katrinas and today we got to see in stark contrast just what real scandals are like. Benghazi! Grubergate! side by side with this. Makes all the village idiots look even more idiotic because they cheerleadered all the Bush ‘leadership’.
Mike J
@Violet:
More infuriating than that is PRI’s Marketplace when they go from, “Megacorp X laid off 20,000 employees today” to “we’re in the money” to announce the market going up.
Violet
@Major Major Major Major: This was evening, so just a top of the hour rundown. I was annoyed they hedged about calling it torture and then got a CIA guy to be the only person interviewed. For anyone like me who only hears the soundbite version, it’s party line CIA.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy: When I was in OCS and nearing graduation, the whole lot of us got loaded on buses and transported out to the site of the Andersonville POW camp. After touring it and hearing about the abuses committed there. We had a long talk about ethics and the law of land warfare. About 21 years earlier, a guy named Bill Cally had been assigned to the same OCS company that I was in, so we talked about him too. Ultimately, the message was “Don’t violate the Geneva Conventions by torturing, or intentionally killing civilians, or any other way that one can think up.” I am not sure that I need to listen to a blowhard like McCain, whatever his personal experience, to know that torture is wrong. I knew it long before I went out to Andersonville in June of 1988.
El Caganer
@eemom: Yes, it’s all just so utterly bawwwwring, le sigh……
Howard Beale IV
@Violet: BBC World Service was describing that report clearly calling the report describing not only containing descriptions of torture, but described that we outsourced to a third party reverse engineereing techniques that we used in SERE training on our own military to break the detainees. BBC also quoted PM David Cameron as saying that ‘Torture is wrong’.
Of course, the UK is knee deep in the hoopla, so take his statement with a salt block.
trollhattan
@Tenar Darell: @efgoldman:
Dittos, can’t get into LGM using whatever browser I try. Interwebs not too helpful re. “x.vindicosuite.”
Thanks, Obama.
Mandalay
@Howard Beale IV:
WTF? You choose go after the person who has done more than just about anyone in the country to make this report happen?
Go pick on Joe Lieberman or Tom Harkin or Jon Tester or Chuck Schumer or Harry Reid or Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton or John Kerry. There are plenty of Democrats with blood on their hands, and there are plenty of Democrats who don’t want to talk about this, and there are plenty of Democrats who haven’t lifted a finger to make the report happen. But leave Mark alooooooooooooooooone!
You just got given a purple unicorn as an early Christmas present and you’re bitching because it wasn’t pink.
Violet
@Tommy: You’d have to pay me a lot of money to listen to John McCain. We all know he was tortured. That’s not news. Let’s review his voting record and support for the policies and people who set up our torture system. There’s plenty of hypocrisy there.
trollhattan
@Howard Beale IV:
I hear Cameron saying that in Mr. Mackey’s voice, “Torture is baaad, m’kayyy?”
Mike J
@Violet: I’d like to hear a Republican who wasn’t tortured say that torture was morally wrong.
If we can’t get that, I’ve got a way to get more of them on board with the program.
beltane
@Howard Beale IV: The UK is knee deep in the hoopla, but in this case fingers can be pointed at Tony Blair.
Tommy
@Violet: People don’t get torture. If I was tortured and I am nothing to close to perfect. At first I’d spit in your face and say bring it. But soon afterwards I’d say Santa Claus was Hillary Clinton if you wanted. Say anything you wanted to make the pain stop.
I looked for the article and coudn’t find it. In the Washington Post about ten years ago. Interviews with WII folks that “broke” Nazis. They did it with two things. Chess and long walks. They’d play chess with them or go for walks in Northern Virginia with them.
They went out of their way to mock our CIA and military that producing pain would produce any results. These men, with more metals than they can wear on their chest, 80+ just mocked our military and their thinking. Saying they have no clue what they are talking about.
That is my frame of reference or one of them ….
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike J: Hell, wasn’t Lindsey Graham out there today condemning this the release? Isn’t he McCain’s closest ally (and he is a fucking Air Force JAG 0-6 (in the Reserves)).
Howard Beale IV
@beltane: Bush’s poodle has been laying low for quite a while after his sexed up report blew up on him.
Howard Beale IV
@Omnes Omnibus: Yep-ol’ Huckleberry Closetcase was whining up a storm.
Lightfoot
Nicolle Wallace is 60% of U.S.
See last election (2014).
Then you see the road ahead.
Dogma.
FlipYrWhig
Why is it that any time there’s a system bent on establishing a pattern of dominance and hierarchy they always fixate on the anus as the best place to establish that dominance? Frat bros do it, cops do it, CIA interrogators do it. Just because of the humiliation element?
Howard Beale IV
@Mandalay: Yer goddam right.
Udall could have had the entire unredacted report read in and he didn’t.
Violet
@Tommy:
What does this mean? What people? What don’t they “get”?
As for the rest of it, perhaps you are thinking of this article.
smintheus
I realize that Romero at this point is just trying to find an ironic way to score points against the torture cabal, but surely he could come up with a clever wheez that at least in theory might actually achieve some worthy goal. Say: Work with friends in The Hague to entice Cheney with an all-expense duck hunting holiday near the Zuiderzee.
Violet
@Mike J:
Me too. Would be highly unusual behaior for a Republican, though. Their defining characteristic is lack of empathy. If it hasn’t happened to them, or possibly to someone very close to them, it isn’t an issue.
Omnes Omnibus
@Howard Beale IV: And you don’t think that the pressure coming from the possibility of that contributed to what we are seeing now?
waspuppet
It was amazing to me at the time that anyone could look at a picture of those 3 at the top of this post and not think “The first three guys I walk into on the street would be smarter than these dopes.” It’s even more amazing that some people still don’t think that.
danielx
@eemom:
OT, but re UVA story. You were right, I was wrong, lesson learned.
Tenar Darell
@Violet: Same family retainers, same torturers probably. My inner cynic says it won’t matter to Republican voters, but they hate’ll him for other reasons.
Omnes Omnibus
@Violet: I “get” torture. It is wrong, illegal, ineffective at getting truthful information, and a fucking abomination. Also, it’s a national shame that we will have to bear forever.
Howard Beale IV
@Omnes Omnibus: If the country can’t survive that detailed kind of revelation, then it doesn’t deserve to survive.
If Germany could survive the revelations of the Stazi, then we can survive what we did in Gitmo.
Period.
Mandalay
@Howard Beale IV:
Did you think about the ramifications of your cunning plan, and still conclude that it was a great idea?
max
@Howard Beale IV: may you suffer the fate mentioned by Vir Cotto.
I miss Vir! Even more than I miss Lando. (Mitch McConnell would be ever so much more tolerable if he talked like Lando.)
@efgoldman: ETA: And if not, the President ought to summarily fire him.
The President knew about it, and appointed him to head the FBI. Obama’s handling of the CIA, the NSA and the FBI have been… completely mystifying. If I thought they’d try and could get away with, I’d say he’d been threatened with assassination (unless he behaved) by some shadowy clique in the government. Otherwise, it doesn’t make any sense.
max
[‘Someday we might understand.’]
Violet
@Omnes Omnibus: So do I. But Tommy says “people” don’t get it. So I wondered what he meant by it.
Howard Beale IV
@Mandalay: See #81.
Violet
@max: They could have threatened Michelle and/or his daughters. That would be plenty to keep him in line, I’d think.
danielx
@Howard Beale IV:
That’s been more or less the response of the powers that be to every goddamn scandal that’s come out of Sodom on the Potomac for the last few decades….
– “it would be bad for the country to go into this”
– “we no longer engage in those activities, so it would pointless to further investigate”
aaaand, my personal favorite:
– “we need to look forward, not backward.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Tenar Darell: Your inner cynic is probably right.
@Howard Beale IV: Not my point. Do the 6000 pages really matter? Doesn’t everyone who gives a fuck know from the Exec Sum what happened?
Violet
@danielx: Don’t forget Nooners and “Just keep walking.”
Tommy
@Violet: You just did something I have to pull people back from when I made the comment I did. This was like 1973. Not 2003. IMHO McCain is a warmonger today. He likes to use his service as a sledgehammer to say we should bomb just about every nation in the world that isn’t in lock and step with the US.
BUT one place, just one he is right is we shouldn’t torture.
Howard Beale IV
@max: I though thet ST:DS9 was very Babylon 5-ish when Sisko got his beard-probably because it wasn’t on a ship, they were in a war, and everyone was a misfit in one form or another..
My favorite episode was “In the Pale Moonlight”.
NotMax
@Mike J
Much that there is otherwise unacceptable, expedient or despicable about his positions, Lindsey Graham has long been vocally on the correct side of this, even during the previous woebegone administration.
Violet
@Tenar Darell: I guess it depends what happens from here. If the UN decides to pursue something, or some sort of “truth and reconciliation” process gets started or President Obama pardons them, then the equation changes. If a blonde girl goes missing and the media pays no attention after a day or two and no actual action is taken, then it will probably have no impact on Jeb.
Tenar Darell
@trollhattan: and @efgoldman
Looks like ios version of noscript is a browser called Ghostery. But I have alternative other devices, so I’m not bothering for now. (Tomorrow).
Howard Beale IV
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes, the 6000 pages do matter.
Details always matter.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy: The students at the Army War College in 1974 (O-5s and 0-6s targeted for possible higher command including stars) knew what torture was.
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus: Honestly we learned NOTHING new in this report. Folks like Glenn Greenwald (go ahead and cringe) told us this stuff was happening for a decade or so. So now we have it in writing. And of course nothing will be done, not a single thing. “Look forward.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Howard Beale IV: I’ll point out that an implicit threat to publish everything unless the ExecSumm comes out contains an implicit promise not publish everything if the ExecSumm does come out.
Tommy
@Violet:
Ask me why don’t yeah ….
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Keith G:
The US stopped torturing in november of 2008 you stupid motherfucker.
Corner Stone
@Violet: It’s like every major over generalization Tommy states here as some kind of breathless fact.
Howard Beale IV
@danielx: There are days I’d love to have a pair of nanocephalic slackjawed mouthbreathers accidentally enter the coordinates from either a boomer or from a missile base and lob a few 200 ktn pieces of ordinances in that general area so we can start anew.
BTW-I though that was the Babylon on the Potomac-than again the Sodom on the Potomac is probably more apropos these days.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy: She did.
Howard Beale IV
@Omnes Omnibus: Regardless-he had the chance-he blew it.
Corner Stone
@Tommy:
You are 44.
Violet
@Tommy: In this post you said the following about McCain:
Now you are saying:
What difference does it make when you heard John McCain speak? I do not understand the importance of it, except as a personal memory for you. However, along those lines we were not in attendance at the 1973 (or 1974, as you said in the previous commnet) speech. Are you suggesting we find audio of that speech? Or are you suggesting we listen to what John McCain is saying today–said today–about torture?
I don’t much care what John McCain says about torture. We know he was tortured. It’s public knowledge and his experiences have been covered over and over, particularly when he ran for President. He is on the Sunday shows most weeks. It’s not hard to find John McCain, should you want to listen to him.
Show me a Republican who was not tortured who comes out against torture and then I’ll be happy to pay more attention. Be sure to alert me when you find a unicorn too.
Corner Stone
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo):
Wow.
Omnes Omnibus
@Howard Beale IV: I see him as being an important factor in what has come out. I also think that what has come out is merely a confirmation of what anyone who has been paying attention already knows. It doesn’t make it valueless; it is just that it is confirmation not revelation.
Violet
@Tommy: Good Lord. I did.
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus: OK my statement was general and the response to mine was as well. That makes it pretty darn natural and hard to respond to.
I am a military brat. Let’s be clear. You as a military person NEVER break the Geneva Convention on torture. Never. First off it is the rule of the land and second you get no good intelligence in return. The report we have shows we got NO good intelligence from these tactics.
It might have felt good for some sad person to torture somebody, but it did nothing to get intelligence or make us safer. IMHO that is the main thing we have to take away from this report.
Tenar Darell
@Violet: I said in one of the earlier threads that all those guys have probably been told to not travel abroad.
As for Jeb, before the release, there was a story in the past day (? internet time, I really cannot remember) about the Republican big donors and bundlers trying to “clear the field” of multiple “mainstream” candidates. (How Christie, Romney and Jebby qualify as mainstream based on their policy positions, I guess relates to the fact that they don’t sound crazy or hit Pierce’s 5 minute Paul rule). How will they pick?
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy: Did you by any chance read this?
Mandalay
@Howard Beale IV:
I have read most of today’s report and it is pretty gruesome reading. The country doesn’t really need an extra four or five thousand pages or so for us to understand what happened. And given that there are unlikely to be any further consequences for culpable individuals, there would be no real difference if the longer (but redacted) report was released. The mere release of the report is an end in itself, and a praiseworthy one.
But not only would reading the entire report be redundant. It would be counterproductive if you give a flying shit about who runs the country. Republicans would have a field day over the traitorous Democrat spewing national security secrets and endangering the brave men and women who defend our country, etc. They would explain why people like Udall belong in Gitmo, and argue that his behavior shows that Democrats cannot be trusted with national security, blah, blah…
The country would surely survive, but you might find the end result would be Republicans controlling all branches of government. Is that what you want?
The irony is that while you are going after Udall, I believe that his threat to do what you suggested is the only reason we saw the summary report today. Without Udall the whole thing might have been swept under the rug forever. But threatening to read the report to prevent a cover up is very different from gratuitously reading the entire report.
trollhattan
We need to deal with this as a nation. Reflecting on the different paths Germany and Japan took regarding their actions in WWII, Germany has taken their responsibility far further than Japan ever has and we’re talking three-quarters of a century later. This torture business or ours is not going away, not tomorrow, not next decade.
Violet
@Tommy:
Are you talking about me asking what you meant when you said:
and I asked:
I don’t think my response was “general.” It was specifically asking you what you meant by it. What people? What don’t they get? How is that hard to respond to if you know what you meant by it?
Tommy
@Violet: Have you ever heard a POW speak? Just wondering. I honestly don’t think you have to have heard one to speak to the topic, but just curious.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay: We frequently disagree, but you are basically on the money here.
Kyle
@Violet:
And when it came to actually voting against torture in the Bush years, he folded like origami.
Whatever he once was, he’s now a craven party hack.
Violet
@Tommy: Why does it matter who I have and have not heard speak? And how is that relevant to the discussion or to the questions I and others have asked about your comments?
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy: Just establish my “street cred” on this, I have met people who were put in prison in Eastern Europe for working to smuggle people across the Iron Curtain. And I have served with people who wore the POW Medal. Just in case it comes up later.
sgaile-beairt
It’s probably past time to repost this, from 2005, song dealing with our need for “hard men” making the Jack Bauer decisions for us, and the shiny exceptionalism to keep us proud and forward-focused against the naysayers with their bleeding hearts bleating like the fifth columnists they are:
Who’s afraid of the sun?
Who would question the goodness of the mighty?
We who banish the threat
when your little ones all go nighty-nighty?
Well, there’s no time for doubt right now
and less time to explain,
so get back on your horses,
kiss my ring and join our next campaign!
And the Empire grows
with the news that we’re winning,
with more fear to conquer,
and more gold thread for spinning,
bright as the sun, shining on everyone.
Some would say that we forced our words
and we find that ingenuously churlish:
words are just words,
don’t be so pessimistic, weak and girlish!
We like strong and happy people
who don’t think there’s something wrong with pride.
Work makes them free,
and we spread that freedom far and wide.
And the Empire grows with the seeds of its glory:
for every five tanks, plant a sentimental story
till they worship the sun,
even Christ loving ones.
And we’ll kill the terror who rises
and a million of their races,
but when our people torture you
that’s a few random cases!
Don’t question the sun, it doesn’t help anyone
But the journalists cried out
when it was too late to stop us:
everyone had awakened to the dream
they could enter our Colossus!
And now I’m right, here you said I’m right,
there’s nothing that can harm me,
’cause the sun never sets
on my dungeons or my army!
And the Empire fell
On its own splintered axis,
And the Emperor wanes
As the silver moon waxes,
And the farmers will find our coins
In their strawberry fields
While somebody somewhere
Twists his ring as someone kneels…
Oh where is the sun shining for everyone?
Oh where is the sun shining for everyone?
I’m not sure that anyone has come up with a better summary of Umberto Eco’s “Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt” than Dar Williams did, nearly ten years ago now; unfortunately, it hasn’t dated at all.
(Vid here, not mine, equates all the 20th century superpowers in its slideshow imagery)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvoVI8r8hZw
Tommy
@Violet: There is a reason Bob Dole holds a pen in one hand all the time. He can’t use the other. Not because of torture, but of war wounds. The same for McCain. Ask Tammy Baldwin. Sure she has many “coping” things to get through the day. That was what I was talking to, even if I wasn’t clear nor specific.
Others go through getting tortured and we don’t hear of them much. I bet they have worse things to endure.
Violet
@Kyle: Exactly. John McCain consistently voted to support the Bush torture regime’s policies and subsequently has pushed for bombing anywhere and everywhere. He’s not some paragon of moral virtue.
srv
@trollhattan:
Lulz, that:
Ha ha ha ha!
This nation is swimming in an ocean of blood.
Easier to just burn Tommy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Violet: I met Claus von Stauffenberg’s son several times. He was a German Brigadier General who came to several social functions I also attended. As it turned out, my battalion’s buildings were his father’s regiments buildings. Our motor pool buildings had been the stables for the old German cavalry unit.
Dave C
@skerry:
Mine as well. The only mentions of it I have seen are from new/political sites I “like” and the single post that I made. It’s very disconcerting.
Mandalay
@Violet:
Two who come to mind are Jon Huntsman and Ron Paul but they are yesterday men now. And in the past Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul have been outspoken, but lately….not so much.
So I think you may have a point. I can’t think of any active Republican who explicitly and loudly opposes the use torture apart from McCain.
We are so fucked.
Violet
@Tommy: War wounds are not torture. They are terrible and we as a nation should do everything possible to support and assist our wounded veterans in their recoveries. But they weren’t tortured.
So you’re saying that “people” (whoever that is) don’t understand what veterans have to deal with, especially if they’re wounded? That’s not even close to the subject of torture. But okay.
Steve from Antioch
What a lot of crap.
People will wring their hands and huff and puff about this for about a week and then there will be another new outrage.
Nobody will be punished. Hell nobody is even going to even be charged.
By failing to hold anyone responsible for these crimes, the Obama administration is complicit.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy: How is that an answer to the question you were asked? We are talking about torture. Not war wounds or injuries incurred while serving on active duty.
Violet
@Omnes Omnibus: Hey, since we’re establishing street cred, can I tell you about the kids I grew up with–their dad’s family hid Jews in their home in the Netherlands in WWII. And the Ugandan kids whose parents were tortured and killed. And the POW in my own family. Not sure if that counts as hearing them “speak,” like in a big speech in a hall setting, though.
Tommy
@Violet: Twist, twist, twist, via your own posts and then accuse me of twisting stuff. This is what I said in my first comment:
Some of my earliest memories. McCain rocked the place. The longest stand ovation by like a factor of five I’ve ever heard. Since that day I’ve thought the man wasn’t tortured for days, weeks, or months. Years! He was an American hero! I can’t stand him but ……………..
If there is ever a person you should listen to on a topic, McCain might be the one on a topic like this. The guy is bat shit crazy on almost everything, not this topic. If that doesn’t make you take note I don’t know what else will.
Tell me where I am wrong here, or want to put up strawmen for me again and again. Because frankly I am sick of it here. Sick of getting beat up here for stating a fact.
NotMax
One more time…
John McCutcheon’s Not Me.
(Know have posted this before, but it fits the political milieu all too well again.)
Violet
@srv: You could pick any era from this nation’s history and find rivers of blood. I agree with you, I don’t think much will come of this, though. I think it’ll get swept under the rug and forgotten. The MSM doesn’t want to deal with it–they’re complicit. Democrats are afraid. Republicans don’t want to go near it. It’s going to take someone really bold and brave to do something about it. Not sure who that is.
Omnes Omnibus
@Violet: If he is making a comment about veterans, he is again discounting the experience of actual veterans in favor of his view from the point of view of a “military brat” (from his previous comments, my understanding is that his father was a civilian DoD employee. To me, the word military has meaning (and it even includes those fuckers in the Air Force)).
@Violet: Cred established as far as I am concerned. And point made, I should think.
Tommy
@Violet: I like you but we are talking past each other. Best we stop.
Violet
@Mandalay: Yeah, that really is my point. If one of the Republican probably candidates–Chris Christie or Rand Paul or Mike Huckabee or someone came out strongly against torture, then things might be different. They won’t. At best there will be some mealy-mouthed “torture is wrong but special circumstances 9/11” crap.
Mandalay
@Steve from Antioch:
You think that politically it would not be an issue? Getting the ACA passed would be a walk in the park compared to going after “those responsible”, especially considering that some Democrats might be complicit.
There is a very good reason that the report focused on the CIA, and avoided going after politicians and the military: it was because with a larger remit absolutely nothing would have happened. You may be disappointed with the result, but it’s probably the best you could reasonably expect. I’ve still got my fingers crossed that the entire report gets leaked to Glenn Greenwald, but what we got today is pretty good. Until last week I was expecting it to be swept under the carpet.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy: All people have said on your original point was that “We already knew torture was bad without the words of John McCain.” His talk was significant for you – fine. It has little significance beyond that.
Tommy
@Violet: I don’t think this matter much. Parents moderate Republicans. If somebody, and dad DoD for 30+ years doesn’t cone out strong against totrure they lose my money given by the parents. Held back money last term on this single issue. But that is Repulicans.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay: Christ, I have to agree with you again.
Sasha
@skerry: talking points haven’t been formulated and approved for general release yet.
Violet
@Tommy: Not sure what fact you are stating.
@Tommy: I don’t think we are talking past each other, but feel free to stop if you’d like. I truly don’t understand the things you have said and asked questions and have not understood some of your answers. So I have asked more questions.
srv
@Omnes Omnibus: Well, then, we should have just listened to all those milbloggers and not all you people suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome.
Soda Straw, baby.
CV: Brat, uncle was a POW, and I knew two who were in Hanoi with McWalnuts. And I went to school with people on both sides in Honduras and El Salvador.
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus: I want to say fuck you. When did anybody here in ’74 say they saw somebody speak out against torture? Moving forward anybody here use a date or historical analysis I will just dismisse it. Reference dates that don’t matter, when they use dates. Cool.
NotMax
@Tommy
Had the Navy enforced its own rules, McCain would have been removed from piloting well before the flight which ended with him a POW.
But his father and grandfather were admirals (Daddy also the C-in-C of Pacific Command during Viet Nam), so he was permitted to keep flying after already having crashed the maximum number of planes the Navy had set as the requirement for pulling pilots from missions.
Tommy
@Violet: I think we are, but not worth it to fight. I might be wrong most of the time.
I hate war of any kind. I hate war. I hate killing a single person.
Maybe once in a single time I’d take a screwdriver to a person to learn something. But pull back knowing I’d learn nothing.
Violet
@Tommy:
Again, I don’t understand what you mean. They lose money you donate but your parents gave to you? They lose your parents political donations? They lose your political donations? Who is giving money to whom? Or not, as the case may be?
Violet
@Omnes Omnibus: Exactly. I also added that you’d have to pay me a lot of money to listen to John McCain. I had to listen to him plenty during the 2008 campaign and he shows up on every political show there is. It’s hard to avoid him. I’m certainly not going to sit and listen to him without a huge incentive.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy: What is your point? I saw fucking movies about WWII that said torture was bad. People had seen Judgment in Nuremberg by 1974. Knowing torture is bad is not a new fucking thing. Your assumption that having seen McCain speak in 1972/3/4/5/6 or something somehow privileges your observations is absurd. I mentioned above that I met the son of Claus von Stauffenberg (who was old enough to know what his father was doing and be sent to a concentration camp). Does that mean I know what the Valkyrie conspirators were experiencing?
NotMax
Omnes Omnibus
Inflicting Sarah Palin on the national arena.
Now that was torture.
Anne Laurie
New Open Thread post up top, if anyone needs a reprieve.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy:
It may not be true of everyone, but I will pony up on this. Don’t claim military cred off of your family. It’s their service not yours. (By the way, if we want to play the family military service game, my family has put people into the military since the Pequot War). Beyond that, until you evince a credible claim to having an actual DD-214, I don’t really care about your status as a military brat. We can go into the fact that military service has no effect on one’s right or ability to judge foreign affairs later if we need to…..
Ruckus
@NotMax:
Yes but he inflicted her on Democrats so I’m sure little jonnie wouldn’t that construe as torture.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
I might even suggest that military service may in fact cloud one’s ability to judge foreign affair matters. Doesn’t have to of course and in many cases seems to clarify that ability. So for discussion I give it a weight of 50%. Could go either way.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: Not an unreasonable suggestion.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
I like that you separated right to judge and ability to judge. I maybe would have put it as rational ability to judge by long term results, but that’s just me.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: Who should have made the decision about Calley? The people who were there? The people who might have been there but by luck got assigned to paperwork in Saigon (no criticism intended)? Or the Army as a whole?*
*Me, I, as an ex-junior officer, I think that Calley should have fried. Powell’s career should have ended from his involvement in the cover -up.
max
@Violet: They could have threatened Michelle and/or his daughters. That would be plenty to keep him in line, I’d think.
One never knows.
@Howard Beale IV: I though thet ST:DS9 was very Babylon 5-ish when Sisko got his beard-probably because it wasn’t on a ship, they were in a war, and everyone was a misfit in one form or another..
Well, yeah it probably was – that was because before J. Michael settled on shooting the series ‘himself’ more or less, he sent the scripts and a partial series bible to Paramount. They rejected the idea and then suddenly enough there was DS9.
max
[‘He couldn’t prove it, but he expected that they stole the idea.’]
Villago Delenda Est
@Tommy: The fact remains that John McCain could have been the candle in the darkness on this issue, but his abject slavery to his Presidential ambitions caused him to ignore the issue during the deserting coward assmalistration.
For that, he is damned. He sold his fucking soul for the nomination.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy: @Omnes Omnibus: Anything to say?
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s a tough question. Certainly not those in the direct chain of command. Would a civilian panel have the ability? I think it’s certainly possible, and they wouldn’t have the real possibility of having a bad career day from it. As an NCO I’d agree with you. I would have expected to fry if I’d have been involved, why should he be any different? And those that covered up or acted like it was normal? No different than those that tortured or ordered torture or knew about it. They should fry. All the way to the top. You want responsible government, then the buck stops at the highest person that said yes. And that buck is one ornery bitch. And it should be.
Here’s the thing. You pointed out above that (my addition) sane people know torture is wrong. We don’t need someone who suffered to tell us that. It should be fucking obvious to any non sociopath.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: For me, as a company grade officer, one doesn’t do what Calley did. One doesn’t let one’s troops run riot.
ETA: But then I am a gunner, how do I know what the fuck know what the infantry or cavalry/armor might do.
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
Can you imagine how you’d feel if he’d become president? Do you imagine we’d be able to feel if he had? I think only one of two things would have happened. We would have found out how bad WWIII would be, or we’d have had a military overthrow of the government when he tried to start it.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
I may not be remembering correctly but run riot is not how I recall the entire mess. That would have been involvement by stupidity or total inability. My understanding was he was much more involved than that.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Hey I was in the navy. The closest I know what ground pounders would do is what I know of Marines on liberty at the end of boot camp. Which means any stupid thing as long as it involved too much liquor and picking fights with people who could kick their ass.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: “Let run riot” is the kindest way of my describing Calley’s behavior. I was being kind. He either told his soldiers to run wild or he let them do it. Either way, it’s on him (and them).
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
OK that sounds more like I remember it, basically I understand if not direct orders, at least general orders were given.
AxelFoley
@Tommy:
The same Greenwald who cheerlead the war in Iraq? Who supported Bush without question? That guy?
Yeah, fuck him.
PurpleGirl
Heard Dubya in a video clip (on NY1) call the CIA patriots. Yup, anyone who worked at the CIA is a patriot and did the right thing.
Valdivia
@trollhattan:
I am glad you made this point. Countries who engage in this kind of thing *and* deal with it do so in a really long time span. The idea that these guys should be in jail already—hey I would like that!–but it takes sometimes a decade to get people to account for what they did. Their impunity does not last forever. Never does.
ecks
@Omnes Omnibus: They’re very aware of how torture happened ot Jesus, and how horribly vile it was, and how that fact makes all non-Christians out as vicious bastards who just want to kill the True Believers. But that was old time torture, of course, not at all like the modern cool high tech version we used to break them damn terrists, RAWR!
SWMBO
@Tommy: Haven’t read the rest of the thread so if I’m repeating someone else, I’m sorry.
Is this what you’re referring to:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/05/AR2007100502492.html