This is clearly a compromise which truly pleases no one.
On April 16, the Obama administration released four secret memos detailing detainee treatment during the Bush administration. Simultaneously, the president pledged not to prosecute the US intelligence officials who were involved in those activities.…
Article comments
— go to most recent comments26 - roger nowosielski
You mean by losing the war?
27 - zingzing
no... i mean the 40+ years of turning germany into a social experiment...
28 - roger nowosielski
With what result, zing? I haven't really been following what's happening in Europe.
Do you mean the "self-imposed sense of guilt" had turned the German nation into a kind of zombies? That's one meaning I can attribute to what you're saying, but I really and honestly don't know. And forgive my ignorance of the subject.
29 - zingzing
hrm.
nothing was "self-imposed," roger. i'm referring to the partitioning of germany into east and west, the berlin wall, decades of occupation, all that.
30 - roger nowosielski
I see. We've done it "the nice way."
I was referring, however, to German sense of guilt for the past. What was that the result of? It's quite different from what happened in Japan, where the young(er) generations are not burdened so. STM, in fact, brought this up on another thread, expressing a kind of puzzlement that the Japanese have never come to terms with their aggression during World War II.
So my question is - if the Japanese are oblivious of history (for whatever reasons), the Germans have been made to be overly conscious of it, to the detriment (I might say) of their national psyche.
31 - zingzing
guilt is for catholics.
and the germans are doing fine now. if anyone has a guilt complex, it's the japanese, although i'm not quite sure what they're feeling guilty about (it's not the war). still, they work it out in the bedroom. such perverts. mmm. japanese girls.
32 - bliffle
Doug says,
"If these methods are torture then we've been torturing our own military men and women for years."
Well, yes we have. I suppose the putative idea was that they would be tougher, thereby, but I suspect it was just another opportunity for incipient torturers to get their jollies.
Everything I've read says that torture doesn't work, so I suspect that the enthusiasm for doing torture is supplied by people who just want to torture others, regardless of lack of results.
33 - roger nowosielski
Well,
Doug is going a little bit overboard here, and I'm sure he knows it.
34 - Cindy
UN torture investigator: Obama has broken International law
UN official suggests US courts can still try accused torturers
The United Nation’s top torture investigator has suggested it is illegal under International law for President Barack Obama to announce that the United States government has no intention of prosecuting low-level CIA officers who carried out torture sanctioned by the Bush Administration.
Here's the same story on BBC News, if one doesn't like Raw Story (or if George Sorros owns it :-)
35 - Irene Wagner
Whenever the subject of torture comes up, the response always seems to be "well, waterboarding isn't so bad, that's why we use it in military training to toughen 'em up for the horror of being...uh..waterboarded."
Why does a discussion about the US and torture so often end at a stalemate regarding waterboarding? What about all the other kinds of torture, the Iraqi on a leash, the cigarette stuck to the corner of the female tormentor's lip. Bliffle may have a point.
36 - pablo
Dave?
37 - Ma ® k
Torture works. Always has. It produces (significant though limited) compliance and sends a message. The claim that its only purpose is information gathering is bogus.
38 - zingzing
yay! hey, mark, since you like torture so much, how about you have a dose?
seriously, that's a sick, sick thing to say. torturers get off on that shit too, you know.
39 - Ma ® k
PC much?
40 - zingzing
maybe, but at least i'm not stroking my dick while i'm doing it, big man.
41 - Ma ® k
Perhaps you should try it as it might improve your comprehension skills.
42 - zingzing
go torture an animal or something.
43 - Ma ® k
Go create your sanitized history in peace.
44 - roger nowosielski
Are you saying, Mark, that one of the sideline objectives is ALSO desensitizing the underlings so as to mold them like clay in the potter's hands?
45 - Ma ® k
Yup, that about sums it up.
46 - roger nowosielski
See, Mark. I am capable of sympathetic reading as well. I thought all along that's the deeper meaning.
47 - zingzing
who's talking about sanitizing history? i'm sure there are people out there who enjoy torturing. i'm sure there are people out there that think torture is necessary. i'm sure that those who actually order, take part in or condone torture suffer horrible nightmares, because life isn't a fucking james bond film.
what next, mark? you going to tell me that you're listening to metallica, playing with your xbox, talking with one of your old frat brothers and drinking a ice-cold brew of some sort?
try and deny it, but i think we all know that you're a walking cliche.
(i've got you either way on this one. wiggle wiggle.)
48 - roger nowosielski
"i'm sure that those who actually order, take part in or condone torture suffer horrible nightmares, because life isn't a fucking james bond film."
I'm not so sure, zing. Humans are very malleable. You do it once, you might suffer conscience pangs. The second and third time, it becomes easier. After a while, you don't think about it anymore.
The trick is not to do it the first time.
49 - zingzing
"Humans are very malleable. You do it once, you might suffer conscience pangs. The second and third time, it becomes easier. After a while, you don't think about it anymore."
that's when you know you're a frat boy. i mean zombie.
50 - roger nowosielski
Isn't that a pretty fair description of "the average"?
51 - Clavos
zing,
i'm sure that those who actually order, take part in or condone torture suffer horrible nightmares...
Probably not. More likely, they go home at the end of the day, play with their kids and the dog, have dinner, make love to the wife, and drop off into a deep, dreamless sleep.
It's easy.
52 - Ma ® k
Zing, about all that I can make out of all that is that at least you realize that I am a walking cliche...
better graffiti for a better world
53 - Ma ® k
The reason not to torture isn't that it doesn't work -- it is because it is wrong.
54 - zingzing
mark: "The reason not to torture isn't that it doesn't work -- it is because it is wrong."
and thusly, i take it all back.
clavos: "More likely, they go home at the end of the day, play with their kids and the dog, have dinner, make love to the wife, and drop off into a deep, dreamless sleep. It's easy."
and move it to miami.
55 - roger nowosielski
Touche! Pragmatic arguments are of no consequence when morality is at stake.
56 - Glenn Contrarian
Gee...WHERE ARE ALL THE BC CONSERVATIVES???? Dave? Arch-Con? et al?
I've made it a practice to not be afraid to answer ANY question...but methinks that answering up to the unanswerable is beyond the pale for some....
57 - roger nowosielski
I'd keep Dave out of that. I'd say he's a cut above.
58 - zingzing
he's still a lowdown, dirty, stinking conservative.
59 - Clavos
...a lowdown, dirty, stinking conservative.
Tautological, zing...
60 - Jonathan Lockwood Huie
For those of you who are still discussing the nature of the guards and the prisoners, I recommend reading about the Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971. The one liner is: College students were arbitrarily assigned roles as guard or prisoner. The experiment had to be shut down half way through because both groups so identified with their roles that the situation had become dangerous. Google it, it's worth reading the whole story.
61 - zingzing
clavos: "Tautological, zing..."
of course it is.
62 - Clavos
I read the report on the Stanford experiment long ago.
It's the reason for my #51; most who participate in administering torture (yes, even americans -- even religious americans) enjoy it.
63 - Cindy
That was one of the studies I consider the three most important I've seen, Jonathan.
Zimbardo and Stanford have a site about the study and relates it to Abu Ghraib. He's also testified on behalf of some of the guards.
Stanford Prison Experiment.
It's why it's very upsetting to keep hearing that Obama message about "no sense laying blame now".
With no investigation and therefore no examination by the culture. These deeds fade out and get swept under the rug with no learning.
I think Obama would rather sweep the entire past under the rug. Why else would he pardon these people but to keep from having an investigation that would lay out a very ugly mess on his "we can do it" watch? I suspect it worked for Obama to pardon these people quickly before an investigation.
Sweeping behavior like that under the rug has never been a good idea on an individual, family, community, society, or any other level.
He is supposed to be smart. How can he think that a nation's people could commit atrocities and not have to face them and deal with their consequences.
This is how the myth that America is so Exceptional has been allowed to continue. By constant sweeping of its crimes under the rug so they can't be seen by the population at large. People who look for them will find them. But many people are in such a state of adherence to their own firmly held beliefs they won't go and look.
Something like this coming into the open might open the whole culture to a re-evaluation of itself.
But no one wants to fall all the way off the high horse. Certainly Obama doesn't.
64 - roger nowosielski
I suggested on another thread that authorizing The Hague to proceed might be one way of "saving face" without hampering the workings of justice.
To do nothing in the face of these documents is indeed unconscionable. It would destroy whatever credibility and good will they've tried so hard to establish.
65 - pablo
Roger,
US military persons are not subject to the World Court.
66 - Jet
Has ANYONE actually read my article, which makes this article a moot point, considering that Bush can't be prosecuted thanks to the GOP-led/controled congress giving him immunity years back when he started the damned war???
67 - Ruvy
Yup, Jet. I remember your article very well. That is why I have bothered to comment here. The whole article is moot, as Obama, unless he assumes dictatorial powers, cannot undo the pardons the Republican dominated congress gave Bush and Co.
That was a fine piece of news coverage you did, Jet.
68 - Ruvy
Jet, that should have read, "that's why I haven't bothered to comment here".
The article's author, Mr. Huie, who never tires of pushing the agenda of the "Blessed of Hussein" is, at least this time round, not goring my ox. So, for once I can ignore his less than stellar reportage.
Jonathan, I don't want to talk behind your back: that is called lashón ha'rá in Hebrew and is a major sin - worse even than slander. Maybe you want to dig a little further into the machinations of your new attorney-general. If he can find a way round reversing the self-generated pardon of George W. Bush and colleagues, he probably has found a legal way to invalidate your constitution and the liberties it guarantees you. If so, reality is about to deliver you one swift and nasty kick in the derriere. It should be quite an inspiring experience, and if you still have the freedom to write about it, a fine book for your devotees to read.
Just please, do us a favor? I beg you, do not publish it chapter by chapter here.
69 - roger nowosielski
Pablo, #55,
Maybe not yet, Pablo, but I don't see this option as too far-fetched. They've had precedences, like with Milosevic.
Anyway, there is a push in that direction anyway, to slowly but surely adopt "international law." Yes, I know, I know - the beginnings of the NWO we all so dread. But in this particular case, it might be to the good.
Your thoughts?
70 - roger nowosielski
And BTW, you know the process. It's all gonna happen incrementally. Well, you may well be seeing one of the first steps, and soon.
71 - roger nowosielski
Pablo - should be #65
72 - roger nowosielski
Jet,
I just read it. Did that bill pass, and when?
73 - roger nowosielski
There must be a way of getting around that. I don't think the Constitution is necessarily at issue.
74 - roger nowosielski
Why, Ruvy?
Don't you care for inspirational literature?
75 - Jet
Sponsor
Duncan Hunter and 19 Co-Sponsors
Rep. John Boehner [R, OH-8]
Rep. Ken Calvert [R, CA-44]
Chris Chocola
Rep. Trent Franks [R, AZ-2]
Rep. Kay Granger [R, TX-12]
Robin Hayes
Joel Hefley
Rep. John Kline [R, MN-2]
Rep. Frank LoBiondo [R, NJ-2]
Rep. Candice Miller [R, MI-10]
Rep. Jeff Miller [R, FL-1]
Jon Porter
Rick Renzi
H. Saxton
Rep. Jean Schmidt [R, OH-2]
Rep. F. Sensenbrenner [R, WI-5]
Rep. William Shuster [R, PA-9]
John Sweeney
Rep. Addison Wilson [R, SC-2]
Committees
House Judiciary
House Armed Services
House International Relations
Amendments
This bill has no amendments. Amendments to H.R.6054
Added to calendar on Sep 25, 2006: Placed on the Union Calendar, Calendar No. 409.
Sep 25, 2006: Reported (Amended) by the Committee on Judiciary. H. Rept. 109-664, Part II.
Sep 22, 2006: Committee on International Relations discharged.
Sep 20, 2006: Ordered to be Reported by the Yeas and Nays: 20 - 19.
Sep 18, 2006: House Committee on International Relations Granted an extension for further consideration ending not later than Sept. 22, 2006.
Sep 15, 2006: House Committee on International Relations Granted an extension for further consideration ending not later than Sept. 18, 2006.
Sep 15, 2006: House Committee on Judiciary Granted an extension for further consideration ending not later than Sept. 18, 2006.
Sep 15, 2006: Reported (Amended) by the Committee on Armed Services. H. Rept. 109-664, Part I.
Sep 13, 2006: Ordered to be Reported (Amended) by the Yeas and Nays: 52 - 8.
Introduced on Sep 12, 2006.
Sep 12, 2006: Referred to House International Relations
Note: For further action, see S.3930, which became Public Law 109-366 on 10/17/2006.