Pajamas Media

134 Comments

1. Derek:

It’s not “criminalizing policy” to prosecute someone with existing laws. It simply means people that broke the law are being punished. Don’t want to be punished, then don’t break the law.

This reminds me of conservatives that try to defend Scooter Libby. As though being convicted in a federal court is somehow a partisan event.

Apr 26, 2009 - 12:40 am 2. Thomas:

Dead wrong, Ms. Rubin. Like other squishy RINOs, you seek to hide the progressive’s true behavior to satisfy your own need for “let’s get along” mentality.

I say, ma’am, expose the liberals lies and do it for all the world to see. American politics will be far better off in the future than if we sit by and allow the Dems to continue their fabrications.

Fight them.

Apr 26, 2009 - 1:36 am 3. Formwiz:

The most frightening words for the Lefties right now must be, “The truth will out”.

PS Somebody should tell Derek that Scooter Libby IS innocent. He could start with Colin Powell or Richard Holbrooke.

Apr 26, 2009 - 3:24 am 4. Terry Gain:

But in moments of quiet contemplation most conservatives know that way lies madness.

We are already there. Your first commenter, Derek, is a case in point. He thinks that if Democratic lawyers declare something illegal in 2009, then it was illegal in 2002, even though the people who were then determining what was legal had a different opinion.

Ms Rubin, your argument would only makes sense if we had a free press which reported both sides of the story. We don’t have that necessity any more. And I’ve no doubt we have already reached the point where very few intelligence officers will stick their necks out for their country.

Televised bi-partisan hearings are the only way to shine the light of truth on the sordid attempts of the Obama Administration to criminaize policy differences and dumb down America’s defenses.

Apr 26, 2009 - 3:59 am 5. Terry Gain:

Please enable the editing facility.

Apr 26, 2009 - 4:01 am 6. Bob:

The law forbids torture of detainees. The question then is whether water-boarding and other aggressive interrogation techniques constitute torture. The Justice Department said they were not torture, which was the reasoned opinion of talented legal minds. Even so, water-boarding was employed on a very limited basis and, as almost all but the most rabid ACLU Kool Aid drinkers admit, was effective in obtaining information that saved many American lives.

My own definition of torture would be an act that causes intense pain, such as from burning or wounding, or which maims or disfigures the subject. Examples would be drilling teeth (as in the movie Marathon Man), pulling out fingernails, branding with a hot poker, applying electric shocks, etc. Water-boarding, sleep deprivation and the other techniques used on American detainees would not fit this definition.

Fast forward to 2009, 7 1/2 years post 9/11. We now have Democrats in control of the legislative and executive branches who think water-boarding and other aggressive interrogation techniques that cause any type of discomfort are too harsh and should be considered the equivalent of torture. Nancy Polosi and company propose to criminalize the acts of those who used these techniques and perhaps the lawyers who gave the opinions about what torture is.

If all the facts come out, a solid majority of Americans will approve what was done, but that does not excuse ruining the men and women who saved lives by using tough questioning methods or those who gave honest legal opinions on the subject by making them defend a prosecution for their actions. Nancy and her friends are wrong about this. The President knows this is wrong and he should have the courage to tell Ms. Pelosi and her allies to drop their quest for this 21st Century inquisition.

Apr 26, 2009 - 4:18 am 7. JHM dba Henry de Bracton:

“It’s not ‘criminalizing policy’ to prosecute someone with existing laws. (…) As though being convicted in a federal court is somehow a partisan event.”
___

That’s OK for you and me, sir, but wingnutettes and wingnuts think somewhat differently.

Under the guidance of Neocomrade Viceroy R. B. Cheney (to whom Princess Neoterica unsurprisin’ly burns a little incense here) and the Addington-Bybee-Gonzales-Yoo coven, they have become fans of OUE, “the omnicompetent unitary Executive Branch.” When omniexecutivity trumps everythin’ else, it becomes simply meanin’less for a Big Party neocomrade to talk as if there were any “existing laws” that can be allowed to interfere with Big Management managin’ bigly. [1]

However that which is meanin’less inside the neocomradely community is far from from meaningless for the rest of us, a polarized situation in which it seems to me descriptive rather than defamatory to claim that “being convicted in a federal court” certainly CAN be “a partisan event.”

Furthermore, there can be no conviction without a prior indictment. It may be easier to spot partisanship at the level of a District Attorney who must decide whether or not to go ahead with such-and-such a case. Resources are limited, and outcomes are uncertain. Neverthless, one would do better to leave it to unworldly purists (or militant extremist Party-and-Ideology neocomrades) to talk about this stale news as if it implied the deliberate abandonment of Rulalaw.

That plan would parallel the proposition dear to the heart of Rio Limbaugh that since gun control will admittedly not prevent ALL murders, let’s not do it….

Happy days.

__
[1] A theory of the ætiology of cheneyoma, “a malignant swelling of the executive gland,” is logically separate from the diagnosis. I transgress that line here by taking for granted my own guess that Hooverville and Wingnut City have been tryin’ for years now to run the Evil Fedguv (their own notion of the thing) the same way MBA’s from the Harvard Victory School would run an Enron or a Madoff Financial Services or a Goldman Sachs.

In the private/secret sector, cheneyoma is (presumably) not a grave brain disease, but rather a way of life. In any case, secret-sectorian Big Managers have hardly ever run into internal corporate obstacles comparable to Congress or the courts. So naturally when Chance or Providence or somebody puts a little HVS MBA laddie like 1LT Dubya of the Texas Air National Guard in the Oval Office, his class of cronies misgovern the way we have watched them misgovern. (It may be the only way they can think of. But God knows best.)

The HVS MBA cronies of George XLIII, that is. All those Law School neo-gentry who facilitated the Cheyneyites proper are to be booed and hissed as traitors to their class, a class that undoubtedly heard rumors of Rulalaw (possibly even of coëqual division of Fedguv powers) in the course of their credentialization.

Apr 26, 2009 - 4:24 am 8. elvis:

And this is the argument that seems to petrify liberals who have relied on the deeply held but factually dubious proposition that this was all “done for nothing.” In their eyes the Bush team was not only barbaric, but stupidly led the country down the path to moral ruin for no reason at all.

The dems know what they are doing. They have changed the definition of terms and are demonizing something that is good. That’s what they always do.

There must be a way to hammer the dems with their recklessness. Everyone knows that they are going to milk this one way or another.

Apr 26, 2009 - 4:31 am 9. Carl:

Hogwash!

The most maddening and difficult temptation not to follow is to beat the living snot out of the “sweet-ears” generation of conservatives that prefer to cannibalize their own versus smacking down the liberals.

Look around Ms Rubin. Congress lost. The Whitehouse lost. The RNC coffers empty. Not one hero in sight. No hope for relief. Thats what wishing, hoping and praying for the liberals to magically get what’s coming to them buys.

Apr 26, 2009 - 4:33 am 10. Wayne:

Derek,
You have apparently not noticed that the people being targeted are lawyers who gave opinions on what constituted torture, which is not legally defined in a way that supports practical decisions. They wrote memos that tried to parse the issue with some degree of clarity, saying which particular techniques did or did not fit the fuzzy legal definitions. That is the policy question that is being fought over here. Supplying a legal analysis better not be a criminal offense, or the Obama administration is producing lots of targets for prosecution when the next non-leftist government comes in.

Apr 26, 2009 - 4:34 am 11. Jbl:

Well, then, indeed, Derek, I say BRING IT.

Apr 26, 2009 - 5:06 am 12. fear Obama:

Visions of Nancy Pelosi on the stand, caught in a web of denial and finally revealed as an abject liar, dance in Republicans’ heads. (”So you were briefed, Ms. Pelosi, and never objected! You never moved to cut off funding, did you?”)

Watching Nancy cry from the witness stand is my ultimate fantasy.

“Oh those poor (Supreme Court protected) terrorists”-

“Water boarded with un-filtered Cuban swine flu infected water.”

“Bush and Cheny have to be prosecuted and put in jail during my tenure as Speaker of the House.”

“THESE ARE MY LIBERAL TERRITORIAL DEMANDS!”

‘Sob’- ‘Sob’-

Dabbing her black mascara streaked red puffy detoxed eyes with an embroidered O-bama handkerchief.

I must admit that it would be better than watching her dance at the end of a rope.

Apr 26, 2009 - 5:17 am 13. CharleSays:

So, Derek, we may safely assume you would have no problem seeing Nancy Pelosi convicted for perjury, right? As you say, “Don’t want to be punished, then don’t break the law.” If Madame Speaker lies under oath at a congressional hearing then she will be breaking the law. If you’ve been following this story in even a cursory manner you would know that there is a massive trail, paper and ontherwise, which would prove this. Happy hunting, bub.

Apr 26, 2009 - 5:45 am 14. geokstr:

Why would any conservatives believe that a “Truth Commission” would hurt the left?

Pelosi would simply say “I don’t recall” several hundred times, just like Hillary Clinton did on many issues, and the media would give her cover. The exculpatory evidence would be blocked by the Justice Department, which has a recent track record for that sort of thing. The commission would be packed with leftists and RINOs. Heck, they’d probably make our own so-called supposed ex-presidential candidate the Chief High Inquisitor, so they could chortle over how “impartial” they were being. Arlen Specter would be appointed counsel for the defense (puke).

We wouldn’t stand a chance.

The airwaves would be flooded with precisely what the left wants us to hear about how evil the BusHitlerites are, and the distraction would be exactly what Obama needs to finish the takeover of the economy while we’re all too busy watching the circus to notice.

And there must be some kind of rule that the trolls must be the first to comment on conservative and moderate sites. Maybe Soros pays them a bonus or something if they do. Just try to post anything contradictory to the official leftist line on HuffPo, or Kos, or DU and see how quickly you’re banned.

Apr 26, 2009 - 5:51 am 15. LynnS:

Obama traveled around the earth apologizing for this country, bowed before the saudis, and chummed it up with south american dictators who spew scorn for the U.S. daily. He returned to this country with nothing to show, no help in Afghanistan, no compromise from the islamic world, no help from europe, no concessions from south america, nothing from china, zip from south korea, zero from iran, negative from cuba.

The world did though very much enjoy his implying to them what they already knew; The United States and it’s people are the cause of the turmoil in the world, oh yea and Israel too but really that is always implied. Now we come to part two, which will distract the country, make the ‘real’ bad guys look like victims, and take the heat off obama and his administration for a dismal job performance.

They new administration can’t stand on it’s own without being propped up by the bush administration. They need them as a distraction, and as a way to explain their failure by alluding to their ‘inheritance’ as an explanation for their difficulties in dealing with the world. Those who elected him thought he had disrespect for Bush, but he really has disrespect for the Office of the President of the United States. After he is done living there, will it go into foreclosure? Well judging by the job their doing, it could happen.

Apr 26, 2009 - 6:01 am 16. Spinoneone:

Just remember this is a “Congressional” commission we are talking about in the first instance. Congress [read Democrats] would surely try to write the rules to exempt Pelosi and her crowd from testifying. The only way to get this done in a fair fashion is to have it be a commission constituted as some sort of grand jury, or at least with all of the powers of a grand jury and none, I repeat, none of the constraints which Congress would attempt to apply to a “truth commission”.

Apr 26, 2009 - 6:13 am 17. DanO:

Just an observation: I was in a restaurant the other day with numerous TV’s. Too early for sports, so CNN was on one TV. Of course this story was fresh, but even CNN had the word “torture” in quotes, as I just did, in its crawler headline.

Which, as any J-school grad can tell you, means they don’t accept the term.

If CNN isn’t on board the “torture” bandwagon…well, ’nuff said…

As far as “going after them” and show trials: good arguments on both sides. I’ll have to think about it.

My favorite Econ. professor, who I had the honor of having as a teacher, Fritz Machlup, gave this advice at the start of an essay exam:

“Please think for five minutes, and write for one…not the other way around.”

Good advice for bloggers, too.

Apr 26, 2009 - 6:15 am 18. longun45:

There is no “truth” in congress. The spin is daily and facts are ignored and have been for years. A truth commission is a code word for witch hunt, but only the “bad” witches will be burned.

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm and three or more is a congress. — John Adams

Apr 26, 2009 - 6:20 am 19. Bilgeman:

Ms. Rubin:
“But in moments of quiet contemplation most conservatives know that way lies madness. They understand that the joy of watching Pelosi squirm would be outweighed by the sinking feeling that never again would competent people willing to make tough calls accept sensitive government assignments.”

I’m afraid that that damage has already been done by the Obama Administration’s selective releasing of the memos.

“They recoil against the notion that resorting to show trials and “high-tech lynchings,” to quote Justice Thomas, surely would poison the political atmosphere for decades. ”

Poisoning the political atmosphere?

Excuse me for asking, but what country have YOU been living in?
I would ask you exactly what it was you thought the 9/11 Commission was about?

“And if so, then what will be the judgment of history: that the Bush administration was populated by reckless buffoons, or by extremely skilled professionals who did what no one thought possible, namely prevent another attack on American soil?”

Let’s get to the truth. Can you handle the truth? Would you even recognize the truth when it’s staring you in the face?
Would living in an atmosphere of lies not be MORE harmful? Isn’t this how we have arrived at this sad juncture in our history?

This can of worms has already been opened, the only proper thing to do is lay it all bare, and let the American people see the facts.

I suspect that the Alleged Hawaiian’s Administration and the Democratic Congress do not want to have ALL the facts come to light because it would present even the most benighted dullards among us with a stark contrast between one political philosophy that put the American people’s safety and security above the law, and another philosophy that would sacrifice citizens’ lives and property to the legalisms founded on SOME peoples’ abstract notions of morality, (not to mention political one-ups-manship).

The truth about the interrogation methods IS going to come out. The Intelligence community are not a bunch of passive potted plants, the fellow who claims to have been born in Hawaii bitch-slapped them, and now he and his cronies had better get ready for a counter-punch.

Somewhere, someone is probably already preparing the leaks, if they haven’t been leaked to a reporter already.

Apr 26, 2009 - 6:24 am 20. Ken Miller:

The problem with worrying about the effect that the Minitruth would have on the willingness of competent people to stand up for this country is that that train has already left the station. The damage has already been done.

However, what MAY come out of investigations is that those same people will be shown to have acted properly in the face of undefined threats and be exonerated. And, just maybe, the American people will learn the truth and begin to understand that our way of life is protected by those who are willing to be inhumane, on occasion, for humanity’s sake.

Apr 26, 2009 - 6:29 am 21. gary:

On Tuesday, it will be five years since Americans first confronted the photographs from Abu Ghraib on “60 Minutes II.” Here, too, we want to cling to myths that quarantine the evil. If our country committed torture, surely it did so to prevent Armageddon, in a patriotic ticking-time-bomb scenario out of “24.” If anyone deserves blame, it was only those identified by President Bush as “a few American troops who dishonored our country and disregarded our values”: promiscuous, sinister-looking lowlifes like Lynddie England, Charles Graner and the other grunts who were held accountable while the top command got a pass.

We’ve learned much, much more about America and torture in the past five years. But as Mark Danner recently wrote in The New York Review of Books, for all the revelations, one essential fact remains unchanged: “By no later than the summer of 2004, the American people had before them the basic narrative of how the elected and appointed officials of their government decided to torture prisoners and how they went about it.” When the Obama administration said it declassified four new torture memos 10 days ago in part because their contents were already largely public, it was right.

Yet we still shrink from the hardest truths and the bigger picture: that torture was a premeditated policy approved at our government’s highest levels; that it was carried out in scenarios that had no resemblance to “24”; that psychologists and physicians were enlisted as collaborators in inflicting pain; and that, in the assessment of reliable sources like the F.B.I. director Robert Mueller, it did not help disrupt any terrorist attacks.

The newly released Justice Department memos, like those before them, were not written by barely schooled misfits like England and Graner. John Yoo, Steven Bradbury and Jay Bybee graduated from the likes of Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Michigan and Brigham Young. They have passed through white-shoe law firms like Covington & Burling, and Sidley Austin.

Judge Bybee’s résumé tells us that he has four children and is both a Cubmaster for the Boy Scouts and a youth baseball and basketball coach. He currently occupies a tenured seat on the United States Court of Appeals. As an assistant attorney general, he was the author of the Aug. 1, 2002, memo endorsing in lengthy, prurient detail interrogation “techniques” like “facial slap (insult slap)” and “insects placed in a confinement box.”

He proposed using 10 such techniques “in some sort of escalating fashion, culminating with the waterboard, though not necessarily ending with this technique.” Waterboarding, the near-drowning favored by Pol Pot and the Spanish Inquisition, was prosecuted by the United States in war-crimes trials after World War II. But Bybee concluded that it “does not, in our view, inflict ‘severe pain or suffering.’ ”

Still, it’s not Bybee’s perverted lawyering and pornographic amorality that make his memo worthy of special attention. It merits a closer look because it actually does add something new — and, even after all we’ve heard, something shocking — to the five-year-old torture narrative. When placed in full context, it’s the kind of smoking gun that might free us from the myths and denial that prevent us from reckoning with this ugly chapter in our history.

Bybee’s memo was aimed at one particular detainee, Abu Zubaydah, who had been captured some four months earlier, in late March 2002. Zubaydah is portrayed in the memo (as he was publicly by Bush after his capture) as one of the top men in Al Qaeda. But by August this had been proven false. As Ron Suskind reported in his book “The One Percent Doctrine,” Zubaydah was identified soon after his capture as a logistics guy, who, in the words of the F.B.I.’s top-ranking Qaeda analyst at the time, Dan Coleman, served as the terrorist group’s flight booker and “greeter,” like “Joe Louis in the lobby of Caesar’s Palace.” Zubaydah “knew very little about real operations, or strategy.” He showed clinical symptoms of schizophrenia.

By the time Bybee wrote his memo, Zubaydah had been questioned by the F.B.I. and C.I.A. for months and had given what limited information he had. His most valuable contribution was to finger Khalid Shaikh Mohammed as the 9/11 mastermind. But, as Jane Mayer wrote in her book “The Dark Side,” even that contribution may have been old news: according to the 9/11 commission, the C.I.A. had already learned about Mohammed during the summer of 2001. In any event, as one of Zubaydah’s own F.B.I. questioners, Ali Soufan, wrote in a Times Op-Ed article last Thursday, traditional interrogation methods had worked. Yet Bybee’s memo purported that an “increased pressure phase” was required to force Zubaydah to talk.

As soon as Bybee gave the green light, torture followed: Zubaydah was waterboarded at least 83 times in August 2002, according to another of the newly released memos. Unsurprisingly, it appears that no significant intelligence was gained by torturing this mentally ill Qaeda functionary. So why the overkill? Bybee’s memo invoked a ticking time bomb: “There is currently a level of ‘chatter’ equal to that which preceded the September 11 attacks.”

We don’t know if there was such unusual “chatter” then, but it’s unlikely Zubaydah could have added information if there were. Perhaps some new facts may yet emerge if Dick Cheney succeeds in his unexpected and welcome crusade to declassify documents that he says will exonerate administration interrogation policies. Meanwhile, we do have evidence for an alternative explanation of what motivated Bybee to write his memo that August, thanks to the comprehensive Senate Armed Services Committee report on detainees released last week.

The report found that Maj. Paul Burney, a United States Army psychiatrist assigned to interrogations in Guantánamo Bay that summer of 2002, told Army investigators of another White House imperative: “A large part of the time we were focused on trying to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq and we were not being successful.” As higher-ups got more “frustrated” at the inability to prove this connection, the major said, “there was more and more pressure to resort to measures” that might produce that intelligence.

In other words, the ticking time bomb was not another potential Qaeda attack on America but the Bush administration’s ticking timetable for selling a war in Iraq; it wanted to pressure Congress to pass a war resolution before the 2002 midterm elections. Bybee’s memo was written the week after the then-secret (and subsequently leaked) “Downing Street memo,” in which the head of British intelligence informed Tony Blair that the Bush White House was so determined to go to war in Iraq that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.” A month after Bybee’s memo, on Sept. 8, 2002, Cheney would make his infamous appearance on “Meet the Press,” hyping both Saddam’s W.M.D.s and the “number of contacts over the years” between Al Qaeda and Iraq. If only 9/11 could somehow be pinned on Iraq, the case for war would be a slamdunk.

But there were no links between 9/11 and Iraq, and the White House knew it. Torture may have been the last hope for coercing such bogus “intelligence” from detainees who would be tempted to say anything to stop the waterboarding.

Last week Bush-Cheney defenders, true to form, dismissed the Senate Armed Services Committee report as “partisan.” But as the committee chairman, Carl Levin, told me, the report received unanimous support from its members — John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman included.

Levin also emphasized the report’s accounts of military lawyers who dissented from White House doctrine — only to be disregarded. The Bush administration was “driven,” Levin said. By what? “They’d say it was to get more information. But they were desperate to find a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq.”

Five years after the Abu Ghraib revelations, we must acknowledge that our government methodically authorized torture and lied about it. But we also must contemplate the possibility that it did so not just out of a sincere, if criminally misguided, desire to “protect” us but also to promote an unnecessary and catastrophic war. Instead of saving us from “another 9/11,” torture was a tool in the campaign to falsify and exploit 9/11 so that fearful Americans would be bamboozled into a mission that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda. The lying about Iraq remains the original sin from which flows much of the Bush White House’s illegality.

Levin suggests — and I agree — that as additional fact-finding plays out, it’s time for the Justice Department to enlist a panel of two or three apolitical outsiders, perhaps retired federal judges, “to review the mass of material” we already have. The fundamental truth is there, as it long has been. The panel can recommend a legal path that will insure accountability for this wholesale betrayal of American values.

President Obama can talk all he wants about not looking back, but this grotesque past is bigger than even he is. It won’t vanish into a memory hole any more than Andersonville, World War II internment camps or My Lai. The White House, Congress and politicians of both parties should get out of the way. We don’t need another commission. We don’t need any Capitol Hill witch hunts. What we must have are fair trials that at long last uphold and reclaim our nation’s commitment to the rule of law.

Apr 26, 2009 - 6:33 am 22. Cybergeezer:

It’s time to bring back “burning at the stake”. This witch needs to squirm and scream! For her that would not be torture; It’s her destiny.

Apr 26, 2009 - 6:36 am 23. Class Clown:

Until very recently, I tried hard to allow the “mainstream” Democratic Party some distance from the radical left. With the ascendency of Obama, I just can’t see that distinction anymore.

The relevance of that is the question of why the Democrats want to pursue torture trials in the first place. On the one hand, I certainly don’t want to live in a society that condones torture. On the other hand, exceptional circumstances sometimes require exceptions.

If I thought that the Democrats wanted to pursue this to resolve difficult legal and moral dilemmas, I would be supportive. However, this is really just a punitive political adventure.

If the Radical Left actually opposed torture, they wouldn’t have ever been such cheerleaders for Bolsheviks, Communists, Socialists, National Socialists, Vietcong, Kymer Rouge, Sandinistas, the Castro Brothers, Hamas, and whoever else is beheading or blowing someone up this week. And since the Radical Left has now finished co-opting the Democratic Party, they no longer have any right to comment or question.

And if there still are Democrats out there who really do want to approach this whole question on the terms I stated above (with the goal of resolving difficult legal and moral dilemmas), the first thing you need to do is purge your party (or my party, as it once was) of the radicals.

I’m not holding my breath on that one……

Apr 26, 2009 - 6:45 am 24. kenny komodo:

I take a stand with Conservative talk show host Mark Levin. He said publicly on his show that if the Democrats want to go after President Bush and his administration he would offer the services of his law firm free of charge. Mr. Levin is a Constitutional lawyer who has written a couple of books (Men in Black, Liberty and Tyranny). Then he reeled off a list of those he would present depositions including Pelosi, Reid, Murtha, a whole bunch up to and including Obambi. So if this is the way Mr. President feels is the best way to bring the country together, well then lets friggin get it on. Come on Democrats, do you really have any balls or is it just more crap running out of your mouth. And perhaps Mr. President shouldn’t forget that what goes around comes around. That someday (hopefully soon) he’ll be out of office and the same rules would apply to him and his crew of acolytes. I’m sick and tired of the “holier then thou” attitude of the liberals. Time to put up or shut up.

Apr 26, 2009 - 6:51 am 25. Terry Gain:

@ 6 Bob

An excellent piece, including this If all the facts come out, a solid majority of Americans will approve what was done, but that does not excuse ruining the men and women who saved lives by using tough questioning methods or those who gave honest legal opinions on the subject by making them defend a prosecution for their actions. Nancy and her friends are wrong about this.

But marred by this extreme naivete.

The President knows this is wrong and he should have the courage to tell Ms. Pelosi and her allies to drop their quest for this 21st Century inquisition.

The President is the problem. He is as extreme as one would expect of someone who: was handpicked by Ayers for his failed Chicago Schools Experiment, chose America hating racist Wright as his mentor, continues unabated his campaign against George Bush.

Apr 26, 2009 - 6:56 am 26. Terry Gain:

Ms Rubin,

I prefer a Commission to the screed of commenter 21, lower case gary. His narrative, while filled with lies, is the conventional wisdom. How do you expect the truth to get out? This is a continuation of the most serious failure of the Bush ministration: a failed communications strategy. If you don’t defend yourself your attackers allegations will be accepted as the truth.

The people who control the narrative, the MSM, overwhelmingly support the other side. A televised Commission is the only way to effectively get out the Bush Administration’s side of this story.

Apr 26, 2009 - 7:04 am 27. savage24:

“Truth Commission”, now there’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one. It would be the revival of the Inquisitions. If anybody thinks Nancy Pelosi would be put on the stand and questioned he’s been drinking too much Obama cool ade. In Washington DC the truth does not prevail and it will not prevail. Always remember, democrats rule they never lead.

Apr 26, 2009 - 7:06 am 28. Samizdat:

Me thinks Bilgeman has it right after much contemplation. The Dems have selectively leaked out info that bolsters their case. They have adopted a position at loggerheads with the facts. Security has already been breached. If there is a full airing of the enhanced interogation program, how it was opined to be legal by some very intelligent Bush lawyers,(based on torture definition defined during the Clinton administration), how there was a specific protocol to employment of enhanced interogation, how it uncovered a goldmine of info that saved lives and how that info thwarted further attacks, the Democrat position is going to look very foolish to the American people who intuitively know the Republicans are right. It will also establish that the Democrat leadership was involved and signed off. I say give Moveon.org and the Huffingtonpost exactly what they want. I don’t see that alot more damage could be done, that already has been accomplished by Holder and the President. The Republicans should demand hearings with one voice, complete with subpeona power, where all witnesses will be under oath. Bush may cry executive privlege and Richard Lugar may hyperventilate about national security, but that misses the larger point. My bet is that the CIA and NSA will Come out looking like the guardians of the citizenry. The Democrats will look very weak and like the monday morning incompetents that they are. Henry Jackson must be turning in his grave. Anyone remember who he was? I don’t think Democrats like him exist any more. Nicely done Mr Bilgeman, carry on.

Apr 26, 2009 - 7:16 am 29. Bilgeman:

#21 gary:
“We’ve learned much, much more about America and torture in the past five years.”

Maybe YOU have, but some of us haven’t because we never fell for the fairy-tale that we’re SO pure and SO clean-handed that we’d allow ourselves to be “legalized” into mass suicide.

You perhaps once believed in a myth, and you should have known better. Now you’re recoiling from it, and thereby thinking as irrationally in your new incarnation as you did before.

“Yet we still shrink from the hardest truths and the bigger picture: that torture was a premeditated policy approved at our government’s highest levels;”

The significance of the fact that in order to waterboard some wretched foreign terrorist took the consent of people at the highest level of government, both Executive AND Congressional, apparently escapes you.

In MOST nations, a captured suspect may receive far worse than a waterboarding or a caterpillar in his jumpsuit form his captors without so much as a by-your-leave.

The upshot, chum, is that we WILL torture your foreign butt, if we have good reason to think that you are an existential threat to us and ours, but we don’t WANT to.

“Zubaydah is portrayed in the memo (as he was publicly by Bush after his capture) as one of the top men in Al Qaeda. But by August this had been proven false. As Ron Suskind reported in his book “The One Percent Doctrine,” Zubaydah was identified soon after his capture as a logistics guy, who, in the words of the F.B.I.’s top-ranking Qaeda analyst at the time, Dan Coleman, served as the terrorist group’s flight booker and “greeter,” like “Joe Louis in the lobby of Caesar’s Palace.” Zubaydah “knew very little about real operations, or strategy.” He showed clinical symptoms of schizophrenia.”

Do you know what a “logistics guy” even is? I’m in the “logistics business”, sometimes “military logistics”.
It’s an old saying in the military world that:

“Amateurs study strategy, professionals study logistics.”

If I receive sailing orders to bring 1000 tanks and supporting vehicles to port “X” in country “A”, and another guy gets orders to sail the fuel and ammo for those tanks to the same port, and meanwhile a third airlift-type “logistics guy” gets orders to fly in to country “A” the people who are going to crew those tanks, don’t you think that that’s information our enemy in country “A” would like to know?
And who is it placing these orders? I would know THAT, right?
And that is precisely what he did know, and what he coughed up:

“By the time Bybee wrote his memo, Zubaydah had been questioned by the F.B.I. and C.I.A. for months and had given what limited information he had. His most valuable contribution was to finger Khalid Shaikh Mohammed as the 9/11 mastermind.”

So the waterboarding provided positive results. That’s pretty much all the justification needed.
(BTW, spare me the “mentally challenged A-Q operative”…you’d need to have SOME sort of impairment to even sign up with Al Qaeda.)

This little bit you offer is good for a laugh:

“But, as Jane Mayer wrote in her book “The Dark Side,” even that contribution may have been old news: according to the 9/11 commission, the C.I.A. had already learned about Mohammed during the summer of 2001.”

Are you trying to imply that the CIA knew that KSM was the 9/11/2001 mastermind BEFORE 9/11 EVEN HAPPENNED?

Someone here is deeply confused and misled… and it ain’t me.

“The lying about Iraq remains the original sin from which flows much of the Bush White House’s illegality.”

I’d be very careful about who it is you accuse of lying, friend, you might not like what you find out.

Al-Qaeda DID meet with and WAS afforded some level of protection and financing by Hussein’s regime. The Clinton Administration thought so:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/527uwabl.asp

500 tons of yellowcake uranium WAS shipped from Iraq to Canada:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/07/iraq.uranium/index.html

We DID find WMD’s in Iraq:

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=15918

And lastly, let’s go back to 1991, when we bombed one of Saddam’s installations, (Project 600), in Baghdad.

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/facility/abu_ghurayb.htm

Do you recall that after the bombing, the “workers” at this facility erected THIS sign?

http://www.psywarrior.com/BabyMilkPlant.jpg

Note that the top legend “Baby Milk Factory” is in English, which makes no sense in Arab-speaking country.

Essentially, chum, here you are, nearly twenty years later, STILL asking us to believe the veracity of a hand-painted sign on a Baghdad street over our own intelligence.

You’re either abysmally stoopid or you don’t really have our nation’s best interests at heart.

Which is it?

Apr 26, 2009 - 7:39 am 30. Samizdat:

Gary,
Nice job of cherry picking “facts” for your essay. Ever heard of Daniel Pearl?

The enemy has no understanding of your “Marquise of Queensbury” view of international relations and interogation. Read the Quaran. Watch Taliban stone women who are percieved adulterers, deny them education and the right to assemble. Watch them suicide bomb other Muslims. Watch as they cut the heads off of “infidels”, fly planes into buildings and bomb trains in acts of mass murder. See them as they go into schools and kill as many children as possible. These people are aliens in culture to we westerners. They operate under an entirely different code. They will not like us more if we try to be friendly and understanding, they will attack us more, for their goal is hegemony, the caliphate and Sharia domination.

We westerners figured this out about 800 years ago when they had taken Spain and were in the process of invading France. We are in a cycle. I don’t want to snuff out Islam, I just don’t want it rammed down my throat. I care about 3000 years of western history; I intend to defend it and extend it. See I have come to like Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Christ, Locke, Voltaire, Burke, Madison, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln etc. I like their liberational thinking about man. What do you like?

Apr 26, 2009 - 7:40 am 31. Sebastian Shaw:

The Republicans should be against this with little thought about being torn just for some petty revenge against the Democrats. Haven’t you heard the saying, Revenge is best served cold? It takes your target & yourself in the cross hairs.

However, if the Democrats insist with the witch hunt, the Democrats will eventually get caught in their own web…

The Republicans need to stand aside as the Democrats eat themselves.

Apr 26, 2009 - 7:53 am 32. paparay:

To #7 JHB – WTF?!! What planet are you from? Why don’t you speak English to this audience instead of being a mofo showboat. What a bunch of crap!

Apr 26, 2009 - 7:57 am 33. LynnS:

I love how liberals pick and choose which human life they defend.

They then pretend that they stand for the so called “rule of law” and the “values”, when it is really “their” rule of law and “their “values” that count for anything. Funny how obama had no trouble with funding the destruction of innocent life, yet agonized over the interrogation of people who loudly proclaim the desire to destroy us.

Hypocrites. Don’t you just love the world you have created? Nothing makes sense anymore does it? A round of golf anyone?

Apr 26, 2009 - 8:08 am 34. eburchelli:

It would be best for conservatives to let it play out according to the Dems agenda. They are their own worst enemy in the throes of their messianic hypocrisy. Unfortunately, it may take a couple hundred years for history to record another Inquisition that accomplished nothing but destroyed hundreds of thousands of lives.

But the Dems need this controversy to hide behind, as they put their socialist agenda into place. What better way to control the already liberally biased news, than to make hay with a witch hunt on Republicans. It is political truth that some of the people can be fooled all the time and all of the people can be fooled some of the time.

Apr 26, 2009 - 8:10 am 35. DanO:

Ah, poor Gary disregarded my humble advice. He apparently thought for zero minutes…and wrote for ???…

If there really is a Gary…sounds a lot like the old “Liza” computer program, or “Jive”, I loved that one…keep crankin’ out those phony facts…

He lost me completely when he mentioned “Carl Levin” (I always suspect name droppers, hey, I used to work for AG, before his Fed days, I can do it, too)…

I’m from Michigan…and there is no greater joke on us than Levin, although it’s a close contest (the convict former “mayor” of Detroit comes to mind, another good Democrat, the Gov…)…along with many others “beholdin’” to the unions and complicit auto execs that ruined this state and CL is right up there to share the responsibility…

If “Levin suggests”…God help us…do the opposite…

I’ll be attending a Billy Joel concert soon here…if he plays “Allentown”, it will be perfect…and maybe he’ll cover “Shuttin’ Detroit Down”…

Apr 26, 2009 - 8:12 am 36. whyaminotsurprised:

The fallacy in the statement “… the prospect of Obama’s ultra-liberal agenda grinding to a halt is precisely what is intriguing for conservatives” is only a dream. If conservatives really had a way of derailing BO’s plan, they would need to control some aspect of the “investigation.” The truth is we don’t. While I respect people like Jay Sekulow and Mark Levin, I don’t think their power can overcome such a dominant position. So while that may not be possible, I still say, let it fly and let the chips fall where they may. I believe the truth will win out. Maybe not yet, but the fight must be made at every step of the way. And when, in a few years, the toll of this administration is apparent to all, the sum total of the fighting will prove that while we lost some battles, we can still win the war. Then the real payback will happen, not in a political sense but in a “what comes round, goes round” sense. The karma the liberals are spreading will come back on them big time.

Apr 26, 2009 - 8:15 am 37. ReConUSMC:

Coming from a simple “Common sense ” and Knowledgeable Pro-perspective on this ver subject .
If that Innocent Human Beings life being saved was your own beloved Children you would give your own life to save .
How many Terrorist would you “Water Board “to save their Lives 1 , 100 or 1000 .
Answer as ever how many it takes ..
Just for the record it is no secret over 500 or more of our ”Special Warriors ” are Water Boarded each year ! Plus DIA and CIA Foreign Field agents as well .
I was WATER BOARDED and went to the ”Slop Shoot ” Bar AFTER I WAS WATER BOARDED and had a few beers with my ReCon Marine Buddies and Laughed about it all ……. BUT I TOLD THEM ALL I KNEW AND THEN SOME .
It in truth was No big deal .

Apr 26, 2009 - 8:42 am 38. Mikey_boy:

There’s only one thing Republicans should be doing. Since Democrats are going to railroad through Obama’s agenda without much debate and no consultation of Republicans, all the Republican representation should simply walk out of Congress – the House and the Senate – and forever dispel the charade that we have a 2 party representative system. Cause until at least 2010, we don’t.

Apr 26, 2009 - 8:56 am 39. AlanABQ:

All the talk of what’s legal to do to a suspected terrorist is academic. The left cries foul about “torture” – like they cry about everything else – and how we should be held to a higher moral standard…as if they knew what those terms mean. Sure, they could define it, but not from their own experiences.

I used to think I’d never understand why they keep imposing all these restrictions on what should be no-brainers concerning the economy & national security, but I think I understand some of it now.

I truly believe a substantial part of their agenda is revenge. Not on our enemies: On theirs. That would be us. From the Civil War to Reaganomics, from unambiguous Constitutional rights to the will to fight against fascism, we’ve stood in their way. They will never forgive us for not letting them create their eugenically controlled Religion of the State. This is why they seek to emasculate EVERY effort to protect & advance America, and they are willing to make everyone suffer for their percieved sins against them.

To them, America is like a zoo – every animal in its place in a controlled environment. But if, say, the elephants get out of line, they don’t want to see or care about what’s upsetting them; instead, they seek to let all the predators inside run loose & leave the entry gates open for other predators in the hopes that some of the elephants get killed. Never mind that all the smaller herbivores will die first; that’s just population control & less mouths to budget for. And they can say “Hey, it’s the elephants fault you’re dying. They should’ve learned their place.”

And some of the dumber animals believe it.

Apr 26, 2009 - 9:07 am 40. neverquit:

I saw Scooter Libby mentioned earlier, yeah, the guy who was busted for saying something wrong about a crime that was never proven……Only a leftist hack mentions this these days. I guess Wilson’s book sales are plummeting, and the movie deal fell through….Hang in there Joey W., Obama will tax you and protect you.

Let’s review – while Obama prepares to prosecute Bush Advisers, and Bush, the following is going on:
1) Pirates running amok on the sea.
2) Battle for Afghanistan stagnates, at best.
3) Battle for Pakistan in opening stages.
4) NoK restarts it’s Nuke Weaps Systems.
5) Iran continues to be a State Sponsor of Terrorism.
6) Iran continues to build towards Nuclear Power.
7) Narco-Terror proliferation on the S. Border with Mexico.
Increasing Cyber attacks from China (perhaps the most lethal)
9) Potential Swine Flue **demic?
10 Economic Performance as related to National Security.

I’m sure I missed something in my off the cuff list.

Anyway, I’m sure glad were concerned for these detainees who may have been forced to lose some sleep, or called bad names, or had some water thrown in their face, or, I think I read about the guy who had a fear of insects – so lawyers debated for hours on whether it would be legal to slip a caterpillar in the cell…..seriously….I hope Obama sees fit to take care of this massive threat to us all…….

Time to grow up Pinkos. Rich Daddy can’t bail you out anymore, you’re supposed to be Rich Daddy now.

Apr 26, 2009 - 9:13 am 41. trangbang68:

#7- No fool quite like a clever fool.

The problem with lay it all on the table hearings is the Walter Durantys of the MSM will turn them into Stalinesque show trials, only broadcasting the slanders against Bush/Cheney ,et. al.
The real problem is the left have been hiding in plain sight for years routinely defaming our troops, spreading pessimism, lying about our successes,etc. The public has bought it and given them power, only encouraging them to be more stupid and reckless.
If these show trials go on, it will drive an irreconcilable wedge in our politics. The bitterness will linger and worsen for a generation
I fear the only thing that will turn the public into a mob set to run the left out of town on a rail will be a catastrophic terrorist attack on our country, a terrible price to pay for the sins of political opportunists.

Apr 26, 2009 - 9:13 am 42. TurfMonster:

#1 Derek: “It’s not “criminalizing policy” to prosecute someone with existing laws. It simply means people that broke the law are being punished. Don’t want to be punished, then don’t break the law.”

Yet another lie from ilk like you. Do you ever tell the truth on anything?

Apr 26, 2009 - 9:22 am 43. neverquit:

AlanABQ said: “The left cries foul about “torture” – like they cry about everything else – and how we should be held to a higher moral standard…as if they knew what those terms mean. Sure, they could define it, but not from their own experiences.”

I think they mean the higher moral standards as exhibited from the Leftists in Hollywood. You know the drill, DUI’s, multiple marriages, multiple stays in rehab, multiple breast implants and botox, multiple run ins with the IRS, and assorted mayhem, pillaging, and general classless behavior by the upper class (Paris Hilton types), and porn. That’s what we’re lacking, I think.

Apr 26, 2009 - 9:26 am 44. MikeD:

Bilgeman said: “You’re either abysmally stoopid or you don’t really have our nation’s best interests at heart.

Which is it?”

Six to one, half a dozen to the other.

Apr 26, 2009 - 9:28 am 45. MikeD:

Didn’t like that previous comment Mr. Censor?

Apr 26, 2009 - 9:44 am 46. MikeD:

That was a test.

Apr 26, 2009 - 9:44 am 47. Professor Guvinoff:

The choice between fiction and reality is as old as humanity itself. During challenging times, a skilled politician can exploit a collective desire for a vacation from reality, as the success of B.O. utopian arguments amply demonstrates. On the other hand, the courage to confront reality is the province of the individual, as a plumber from Ohio recently volunteered to illustrate.

The energy behind the tea parties reveals the depth of conviction of individuals who would otherwise not come together, except under the banner of the American values of liberty and responsibility. This is the clamor for a counter-attack of reason over folly.

This tension cannot be arbitrated by some “Truth Commission”, which is just one more utopian concept, but it can be resolved by citizens to determined to keep their representatives on a short leash when they need it.

Apr 26, 2009 - 9:55 am 48. AlanABQ:

neverquit-

I feel I should elaborate on those points.

When it comes to the left & Hollywood, their behavior, not their rhetoric belies who they are. Moral equvalence is fine, as long as they aren’t expected to actually adhere to it.

I believe it’s clear that when they and the protofascist Democrat elitists they follow speak of being held to “higher moral standards”, they aren’t talking about themselves; it’s for the rest of us to follow.

I think we can all see that all the mandates to protect the environment, eat healthier, ban smoking, “hate crime” & “hate speech” legislation, and gun control are merely directives for the peasantry to adhere to.

Apr 26, 2009 - 9:56 am 49. BC:

I think Obama should stick to his guns about avoiding prosecution as best he can (quietly) for this stuff — it’ll very likely spread to other areas and be a huge, bitter diversion from the pretty serious tasks at hand. Also there will likely come out that a number of congressional Democrats had a good idea what was going on when it was going on, so….you know? This is the sort of stuff that would be best left for a 3rd party Woodward/Bernstein type journalistic expose, but….oh wait, our newspapers are on their deathbeds and absolutely nothing is taking their place (you think stuff like what you guys or the Huffington Post do are any sort of substitute?)

Special note to “Bilgeman” — it’s way, WAY past the time to give up on that nonsense. The only “WMD’s” found were random, discarded or misplaced leftovers in various stages of degradation from the very nasty Iran/Iraq war, and the only contact between Hussein’s people and al-Qaeda was no more than a couple of meetings in the mid-90’s to explore possible cooperation, but nothing but increased hostility came from it. Indeed, al-Qaeda (and Iran) supported the radical Kurdish group Ansar al-Islam, and they wanted to dump Hussein and turn Iraq into an Islamic republic.

Apr 26, 2009 - 11:43 am 50. huxley:

I think Obama should stick to his guns about avoiding prosecution as best he can (quietly) for this stuff

It’s hard to tell what “guns” Obama might have in this area or any other, since what he says one day (not running for president, standing by Rev. Wright, pledging to abide by campaign finance reform) becomes null and void the next day if it strikes him as expedient.

If Obama wanted to avoid this becoming a “huge, bitter diversion” he might have thought twice about releasing those memos himself.

And if those photos go public, there will be no stopping a big Iran/contra-like scandal that will be no good for anybody — including the Obama administration.

Apr 26, 2009 - 12:02 pm 51. tanstaafl:

Visions of Nancy Pelosi on the stand, caught in a web of denial and finally revealed as an abject liar, dance in Republicans’ heads. (”So you were briefed, Ms. Pelosi, and never objected! You never moved to cut off funding, did you?”) The desire to settle the score with those who vilify in hindsight but cheered contemporaneously is understandable.

Nancy needs to be caught on something, fudging on what she offered as the Catholic church’s (her own church) stand on abortion and being emphatically corrected by the church hierarchy.

Telling illegals (and legals) in a SF church that knocking on their doors at night was “un-American”…(the speaker of the house apparently doesn’t believe in enforcing federal law)

Writing the Porkulus in private, even to the exclusion of other democrats, and then telling the boyz to “hurry up and pass it” as the jet was waiting to whisk her off to Rome where (it is hoped) the Pope sat her down for a little lecture on the church’s position on abortion.

Chomping at the bit to get the (un)fairness doctrine re-instituted, so a pundit can’t point out she isn’t too bright without another pundit saying she is bright.

She’s obviously chomping at the bit to “get” the former President and Vice President.

Let Pelosi explain her feigned ignorance.

Calling her out on conveniently forgetting her many briefings on the handling of detainees 2002-2006, in a formal setting, with proof, would be fun.

But, yeah, we hardly need a show trial at this juncture.

Apr 26, 2009 - 12:43 pm 52. robotech master:

Hey dereck do you even know what libby was charged and convicted up?

Apr 26, 2009 - 12:48 pm 53. Derek:

US law says that we can’t violate the 3rd Geneva convention. You want to know what torture is, look that up instead of running off at the mouth.

2ndly, the Libby defending is hilarious, keep it up. What better way to show just who is politicizing an issue than to see who is disputing a federal court conviction.

Apr 26, 2009 - 12:58 pm 54. Delia:

Most of ya’ll know exactly how I feel about that bug-eyed puke-y Pelosi so I won’t reiterate except to say that the hag will lie through her teeth so I’m hardly surprised by her idiotic responses to the liberal idiocracy [note that I didn't say her responses were for the Conservatives who know better]. -But, since the libzombies all seem to share one collective brain cell between them, it’s little wonder why they’ll swallow the Liberal B.S. hook, line and sinker like good little lib-drones.

Oh heckies! The bleedin’ hearts would probably consider ‘tickling’ with a feather ‘torture’ or listening to Britney Spears on a loop [okay that last one could be considered torture]. I know, I know…we are supposed to ‘consider’ the ‘feelings’ of the precious terrorists. *sniff-sniff* We have to evaluate them psychologically and make sure they aren’t afraid of the dark, aren’t afraid of cell bars, aren’t allergic to lettuce…blah blabbety blah blah freakin’ blahhhhhhhhh.

The Zero is as partisan as they come and all of this pathetic political crappola is just a smoke-screen whilst his power-grabs and monopolizing go on behind the scenes. -And, let’s make the most of the ‘Swine Flu’ scare too. More distractions? YAYYYYYYY FLU! /sarc

Speaking of bio-terrorism er the ‘flu’… Eat your oysters because they are rich in zinc and will help boost your immune system or if you hate oysters take zinc supplements.

Sorry, that’s the ‘mom’ in me talkin’.

Apr 26, 2009 - 1:14 pm 55. 888:

Truth Commission? Bring it on. And, while they’re at it, also have the Commission look into Clinton’s absence and reckless disregard for the tragedy that started and continued at Darfur when millions were tortured and massacred throughout his presidency.

Also, look at why Kennedy sent “advisors” to Vietnam and started the war that cost tens of thousands of American lives and millions of displaced, wounded and killed Vietnamese nationals.

Lastly, let the Truth Commission also, once and for all, force Obama to surrender his birth certificate to prove that he is truly eligible to be US president under the Constitution’s natural-born US citizenship requirement.

Apr 26, 2009 - 1:15 pm 56. ChipD:

No- sorry, but the “west Coast Airline” plot was disrupted in 2002, long before and separately from waterboarding;

and breaking the law is not a “policy difference” no matter how much the partisans want to spin it.

As the truth dribbles out, you see even FBI agents and military personnel denouncing and distancing themselves from this very un_american and dark chapter in our history.

Apr 26, 2009 - 1:21 pm 57. prospero:

The Left is a runaway train right now–they won’t stop until they crash. Everything conservatives do should be focused on making that happen as soon, as visibly, and as completely as possible–and, secondarily (since very difficult), trying to minimize the damage resulting from impact. On this issue, that means demanding full exposure, that all charges of law breaking be followed by prosecutions, that every one involved be deposed, etc. The Dems have all the advantages in terms of how things will be represented, but they can’t control such a complex situation and more chaos is our best opportunity to change the political landscape a bit. We should make it clear that if Obama means what he says about this “dark period in our history” then he is obliged to offer apologies to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others, along with restitution. The man was held without trial or even charges; he was mistreated illegally–here is our chance to show that we value the rule of law over grubby concerns like protecting the lives of innocents. How about it, Mr. President? Make us proud–maybe you can do one of those cute little curtsys again.

Apr 26, 2009 - 1:26 pm 58. 888:

The libs have lost any and all fiber of credibility and decency. Look at their polarizing, miserable spokespeople — Garafolo, Michael Moore, Pelosi, Reid, Frank, Perez Hilton, Biden, Madonna, MSNBC, Obama — all vindictive, elitist hypocrites.

Enjoying reading all the comments, especially from LynnS, Kenny Kimodo, AlanABQ and neverquit.

Apr 26, 2009 - 1:39 pm 59. Dave Surls:

“Conservatives are torn. On the one hand, a “truth commission” to investigate enhanced interrogation techniques employed by the Bush administration would criminalize policy differences, potentially tag the Bush administration’s good faith efforts to prevent a second 9/11 as “war crimes,” and tear the country asunder. All that strikes conservatives as dangerous in the extreme. And yet … the temptation to plunge into the abyss is palpable.”

Resist the temptation. Right now, the enemy are terrorists and state sponsors of terrorism. This is not the time to seek payback against the liars, hypocrites and outright traitors in the ranks of the liberals and Democrat Party.

Republicans should do everything in their power to keep our espionage and counter-terrorism efforts secret.

Let the traitor Democrats play their little games for now. Someday they’ll get what’s coming to them. But, today is not the day.

Apr 26, 2009 - 2:06 pm 60. AlanABQ:

It’s so cute when leftards start whining about what is “un-American”.

Then again, who would know better than them?

As for the Geneva convention, where, exactly, does it stipulate what may or may not be done to terrorist suspects fighting not for any country in particular? If you could elucidate with your obviously impeccable wisdom there, Derek, I’d sure appreciate it.

That’s another funny little quirk about leftards, particularly in America: they know (or think they know) all about the ultra-quaint Geneva conventions & how they matter so much, but are completely mystified by the US Constitution & think it’s a “living document”…that can be altered at will when it suits them. Or discarded.

Obambi’s slogan should have been “Taking a Knife to a Gunfight”. It works on so many levels! Literally – spriritually – mentally…

Apr 26, 2009 - 2:09 pm 61. TurfMonster:

#53 Derek: “US law says that we can’t violate the 3rd Geneva convention. You want to know what torture is, look that up instead of running off at the mouth”

I already know what torture is and it isn’t what you claim it to be. And the Bush administration didn’t torture anyone but people like yourself torture fact and reason every opporturnity you get for political gain.

Apr 26, 2009 - 2:24 pm 62. TurfMonster:

#56 Here is the real story behind the West Coast plot and enhanced interrogation technics did work, contray to what you claim: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDE5YTNmZTg5OWUyOTlkMGUxOTk3OGMxY2I4ZDQ4YWQ=

“In my Washington Post piece, I was citing the very documents which President Obama released, which quote the CIA saying that interrogation with enhanced techniques “led to the discovery of a KSM plot, the ‘Second Wave,’ to ‘use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into’ a building in Los Angeles.” The memo released by Obama goes on the explain that “information obtained from KSM also led to the capture of Riduan bin Isomuddin, better known as Hambali, and the discovery of the Guraba Cell, a 17-member Jemmah Islamiyah cell tasked with executing the ‘Second Wave.’ ”

Again, those are not my words. That is the position of our intelligence community.“

Apr 26, 2009 - 2:33 pm 63. Larry:

Bush era interrogation methods were not criminal.

The chief point for me is that this scab is being picked to distract us from the massive and eventually disastrous shift that is being forced upon American society.

If we carry on down the Obama road we shall be a toothless self-repudiating/loathing society like the U.K.

Less government, less governmental intrusion in to individual lives: that is the direction in which we should be heading.

Apr 26, 2009 - 2:37 pm 64. TurfMonster:

“It’s so cute when leftards start whining about what is “un-American”.”

Yes, isn’t it? They’re downright McCarthyite – and we’ve all known this for about 40 years now. From trying to intimidate the opposition into silence (shouting down speakers in colleges – David Horowitz can tell us plenty of stories here, just to name one) to the reckless charges that they toss out there about the Bush administration, to name another. Anything to get their hands on power – there are no limits to the depths to which they will descend.

Apr 26, 2009 - 2:40 pm 65. pappy:

RE…..HENRY D BRACKET # 7, i read your entire thread and would definitly put it right up there with waterboarding and chop sticks in the ears.

Apr 26, 2009 - 2:48 pm 66. tanstaafl:

In the case of terrorism, you’ve got independent terrorists and terrorist organizations beheading or otherwise excruciatingly killing, or planning to kill, civilians, individually and en masse, at will.

They don’t fit the parameters of prisoners or war or anything else relating to the language of the 3rd Geneva convention…

Convention (III) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Geneva, 12 August 1949

They more aptly fit the description of religious assassins.

Apr 26, 2009 - 3:04 pm 67. venividivici:

26

If the Radical Left actually opposed torture, they wouldn’t have ever been such cheerleaders for Bolsheviks, Communists, Socialists, National Socialists, Vietcong, Kymer Rouge, Sandinistas, the Castro Brothers, Hamas, and whoever else is beheading or blowing someone up this week. And since the Radical Left has now finished co-opting the Democratic Party, they no longer have any right to comment or question.

Exactly. The self-righteousness on the left side of the aisle meter is pegged at 11 and the engine’s about to blow.

Apr 26, 2009 - 3:09 pm 68. Samizdat:

Dave Surls at # 59,

You identify the strategicaly intelligent idea of avoiding the disclosure of state secrets; too bad President Obama and the hard left have other ideas. The cat is already out of the bag. It’s the Church commission all over again. This time, however, the Democrats are complicit, and they should be held accountable for their hypocracy. Hoist them on their own petard. They failed to see this is a losing issue for them, time to expose Pelosi, Durban and company for who they really are. The American people will not appreciate their mendacity. They may hate Bush, but they remember the seriousness of events 7 years ago, and they are not going to like the attempted exploitation. Republicans should press hard for an investigation with full subpeona power.

Apr 26, 2009 - 3:10 pm 69. iconoclast:

“They recoil against the notion that resorting to show trials and “high-tech lynchings,” to quote Justice Thomas, surely would poison the political atmosphere for decades. They, in their hearts, understand that we would be embarking on a never-ending cycle of recrimination and criminalization which we have almost entirely avoided for over 200 years.”

As offensive as it is, we must be as resolute in our dealings with internal enemies as we are with our external enemies. Because, if for no other reason, Democrats have already embarked on a never-ending cycle of recrimination and criminalization with the ultimate goal of completely discrediting anyone who opposes their goal of statism (and the corruption that benefits the powerful in such a society). They are our internal enemies, supported by gullible fools mis-educated and lied to by Dem partners in government education and the media.

It is a little like the early ’90s when radical Islam was at war with the USA, but the USA did not take notice. Democrats are at war with the USA as it has existed for over 200 years. The rest of America better take notice of that fact before it is too late.

Apr 26, 2009 - 3:10 pm 70. Class Clown:

gary and Derek,

I’ve got a little challenge for you. I would like to hear a heartfelt condemnation of Leftist and Islamist brutality. If I hear that from the Left, then I will believe that, for you, this is about moral principle and not just Bush-hating.

Let’s hear it.

Apr 26, 2009 - 3:17 pm 71. Cichawoda:

Conservatives are suffering from Balzheimer’s Disease.

Apr 26, 2009 - 3:18 pm 72. AlanABQ:

TM-

Speaking of David Horowitz & free speech on canous, check out ‘The ProFessors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America’, if you haven’t already.

I could recommend it to our liberal friends here, but…well, you know. That whole “reality” thing just doesn’t sit well with them.

Apr 26, 2009 - 3:41 pm 73. AlanABQ:

“Campus”. I was educated in public schools. Could you tell? lol

Apr 26, 2009 - 3:48 pm 74. Bilgeman:

$49 BC:
“Special note to “Bilgeman” — it’s way, WAY past the time to give up on that nonsense.”

You should see to your pal gary, who saw fit to throw his Iraq constipation, (and pretty much the kitchen sink, also), into the matrix.

He brings it up, I knock it down, and you jump in to object.

Double standard, much?

But since you ARE so out front about it, let’s take apart YOUR BS on the matter:

“The only “WMD’s” found were random, discarded or misplaced leftovers in various stages of degradation from the very nasty Iran/Iraq war,”

So, yes Virginia, WMDs were found.

I notice that you “quote marked” “WMD”s, as if they really WEREN’T WMDs at all.
If that’s the case, i suppose you would have no objection to having one of these devices explode upwind of YOUR children’s school playground during recess, right?

“…and the only contact between Hussein’s people and al-Qaeda was no more than a couple of meetings in the mid-90’s to explore possible cooperation, but nothing but increased hostility came from it.”

But there WAS contact, with hand-shakes and air-kisses and all that jazz between A-Q and Hussein’s people. If they had ever wanted to pursue a “joint venture” against a common enemy…say, the USA, each side knew exactly whom to call.

“Indeed, al-Qaeda (and Iran) supported the radical Kurdish group Ansar al-Islam, and they wanted to dump Hussein and turn Iraq into an Islamic republic.”

And that state of affairs was supposed to be set in stone and stay unchanged forever?

Again…let’s hearken back to Desert Storm.

Has it gone irretrievably down your personal memory hole where Saddaam sent his air force when the Eagles, Hornets, Falcons and Tornadoes came and blotted out his sunlight?

To airfields in Iran.

Now WHY would he do THAT? Weren’t the Iraqis and the Iranians killing each other off by the boxcar-lot just a scant 3 years prior?

It makes perfect sense though, when you realize that in a tyranny, and both Iraq and Iran,(and most of the rest of the Arab World), have been tyrannies,the armed forces are NOT the protectors of the people, but rather the personal bodyguards of the tyrant.

Which means, that (literally), yesterday’s bitter enemy is today’s ally.

Politics makes starmge bedfellows, the saying goes, and it’s veracity cannot be denied.

Here the Liberal wing of the Democratic Party has allied itself with Marxist dead-enders and Jihadist terrorists against the party that represents (very, VERY broadly speaking),the
political views of at least half the American people, even so far as increasing the vulnerability to violent attack of the people it CLAIMS it wants to serve.

What it REALLY means to do, though, is to RULE us.

Apr 26, 2009 - 4:50 pm 75. Delia:

73. AlanABQ:

“I was educated in public schools. Could you tell?”
~

Nawwwwww. From one victim of public school to another I feel yer pain, homey. I’m still angry at the pathetic edumacationz I received in public school and my mother was no help either.

-And, AlanABQ watch it with that ‘reality’ stuff…you might J-J-J-JOLT one of them out of their utopian, libtard idealogy for one hot minute

Apr 26, 2009 - 4:54 pm 76. Ellen K:

On one hand, as Americans we should stand for a higher level of behavior. But even a wolf will chew off its own foot from a trap. At the time, the Bush Administration was dealing with an unprecedented attack on American soil. We had no idea of its source or the eventual outcome. I remember those days all too well. And I believe there is a reason why the media refuses to air those dreadful minutes as Charles Gibson realized the planes flying into the towers was not accidental. Given that situation, I think we were restrained for not shooting them on the spot. Let’s remember, the Islamists don’t worry about underpants on the head because they behead their captives on live TV courtesy of Al Jazera and CNN. Knowing that, knowing that I would want my kids and the kids I teach to be safe at their homes and that I want the innocents who were killed as the result of this heinous, inhuman act, I have no problem with waterboarding. What will be telling is if and when they have these commissions (i.e. Kangaroo courts) the Left will try to politicize it as they did during the last election. But once you open a can of worms, it’s hard to get all those worms back in the can. The Congressional committee was read into this. They outlined the procedures and signed them. If Pelosi and other libs try to claim they didn’t know, then either they weren’t paying attention or they are lying. Either way is fine with me. Maybe we can reopen Alcatraz so Pelosi can view her beloved homeland from the safety of her cell.

Apr 26, 2009 - 4:58 pm 77. Bilgeman:

#58 888:
“The libs have lost any and all fiber of credibility and decency. Look at their polarizing, miserable spokespeople — Garafolo, Michael Moore, Pelosi…”

I have it on pretty good authority that in Calabrese, a “Pelosi” is a descriptive noun for a pig’s scrotum.

And in the Sicilian dialect, a “Garofalo” is a syphillis chancre.

Thus, when you’re in southern Italy, and you hear a rustic talking to another, and you hear those two words, they may NOT be talking about American politics.

…of course, maybe they are after all.

Apr 26, 2009 - 4:59 pm 78. ChipD:

Turfmonster @ #62:
Actually, you cite Marc Thiessen’s piece which was debunked by Timothy Noah at Slate:
The LA Airline plot was broken up in 2002, before Sheik Mohammed was even captured- again, not my assertion, but according to the Bush White House.

As long as we are on point- read Ali Soufan’s piece in the NYT where he (an FBI agent supervising interrogation) declares that traditional techniques work, and torture doesn’t- again, not the word of a leftard, just an American law enforcement agent doing his work.

Apr 26, 2009 - 5:01 pm 79. ChipD:

And #70 Class Clown, while I can’t speak for other poseters here, I DO denounce Islamist and Leftist crimes.
Many on the Right are correct in seeing radical Islam as a dangerous threat, and the crimes of the Left are legendary.
However, Crhistopher Preble at the Cato Institute makes a very good point why America cannot allow itself to sink to the levels of the Islamists-

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/04/23/counterterrorism-torture-and-the-law/

Basically, that the whole point of terrorism is to cause us to abandon our faith in secular law and justice, and engage them on their terms in a religious crusade.

Apr 26, 2009 - 5:06 pm 80. steveg:

The way I see it, the American left has become what the ultra-conservatives were like in the 1950’s. Intolerant and overbearing. Just like the ultra-conservatives of the 1950’s they choose to ban what they ‘deem’ inappropriate or harmful to society.

A good author could easily expand on this analogy and make a mockery out of the progressive movement. This would be just the type of book that would make the hags on ‘The View’ go ballistic.

Everyday you read in the news and laugh or cry at another pursuit of the left at banning what they ‘deem’ is harmful to the earth or your health. If the American left had their way they would ban the following items or freedoms:

1)Guns (banned already in many cities)
2)Books that are not politically correct (banned already in many libraries)
3)Speech that is not politically correct ( people have lost jobs)
4)Trans Fats (banned or a proposed ban in many cities)
5 Smoking in public (banned throughout America)

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Just wait until the enviro’s get all their demands answered by Congress and the White House.

The present day progressive movement is every bit as overbearing as the ultra-conservatives of the mid 20th century. It will only worsen with the left in complete control. It will be like living on a college campus.

Apr 26, 2009 - 5:10 pm 81. Samizdat:

Chicawoda,
Ok, I’ll bite; what is “Balzhiemers” disease?
I am assuming in advance that your prior post is yet another ad hominem attack.
Looking forward to your educational reply.

Apr 26, 2009 - 5:13 pm 82. Samizdat:

Venividivici,
Yup, and it all happens on their watch now. They are on duty, the centurion at the gate, and I don’t think they realise it. Their is trouble afoot on multiple fronts, Mexico, Pakistan, Ukraine, Korea, etc. and the general strategic situation has one common attribute, increasing instability. The Democrats control the entire show now and when it blows there can be no convincing finger pointing, although they will try really hard and the MSM will help all it can. Of Course, I am assuming that when the inevitable self induced test occurs, there will still be some portion of the NYT, NBC, Newsweek, Time crew left to help with the prop up.

Hey, did you know that GE, owner of NBC and its cable off shoots, got multiple billions in TARP funds? They recieved money from the 2nd disbursment. Gee, I wonder how Ol Jeff Immelt is doing on 250 large a year? No wonder NBC has been such a critic of the new administration, explains everything.

Apr 26, 2009 - 5:35 pm 83. kdman:

the damage to our intel capabilities is already done. this is another leftist/progressive repeat of the Carter/Church/Clinton/Gorelick debacles of the 70’s and 90’s. we have just set ourselves up for another round of terrorist attacks, like the aforementioned did. mark my words. our intel capabilities have now been newly eviscerated. we need to brand this to the Bojangles admin. and make it stick. he and the clown racist AG must own this.

so, let’s get it on with pelosi in a hearing. just bear in mind the press will NOT air bad stuff about her and the rest of the crooks on the left. they can’t. but we can help fuel the furor and fire on the right.

Apr 26, 2009 - 6:14 pm 84. TurfMonster:

“Actually, you cite Marc Thiessen’s piece which was debunked by Timothy Noah at Slate:
The LA Airline plot was broken up in 2002, before Sheik Mohammed was even captured- again, not my assertion, but according to the Bush White House.”

Timothy Noah did nothing of the sort – the documents that Thiessen relied upon were released by the Obama administration. Read what I’ve quoted this time. It isn’t so difficult to understand.

And I believe that Ali Soufan has said differing things about enhanced interrogation methods over the years. I don’t have the link to what can prove this at hand but I’ll find it if need be.

Apr 26, 2009 - 6:34 pm 85. venividivici:

82

Samizdat,

As any good mathematician/logician knows, there are two “infinities”, the infinitely large and the infinitely small. The former is the left’s ability to talk a good game about why it should be in charge, the latter is its actual abilities once in charge. It’s no wonder the left is in permanent campaign mode.

Yep, GE is up to its neck in “green” businesses, too, so you know that they’re just happy as a pig in the proverbial you know what that Obama’s going down that road. Google “spain cost green jobs” for where that boondoggle leads.

Apr 26, 2009 - 6:35 pm 86. Wallace:

Too late. The political atmosphere is already poisoned. Like the cliche says, can’t put the genie back in the bottle. By publishing the memo, hinting prosecutions and so on, Obama already resorted to
“high-tech lynchings”. Getting everything in the open make sure that Obama’s “high-tech lynchings” is not a one-sided affair. Let American people decide for themselves whether killing thousands of fellow citizens and putting a billion dollar loss in economy and properties is morally equivalent to not soaking a terrorist’s face or putting a caterpillar.

The recovery process can begin after the facts get out, not if Obama simply pull back from the precipice. If this is not resolved, it will surface again the the future. Guaranteed. Let the politicians who politicize security be beclowned so badly that the future politicians think twice to do the same foolish endangerment of national security for political gains.

Apr 26, 2009 - 7:00 pm 87. typos_R_us:

Derek;
“It’s not “criminalizing policy” to prosecute someone with existing laws.”

Please provide the Statue that has been broken. By that I mean the code reference. Title whatever, section something or other paragraph this and that.
You can’t because there isn’t one. What that means is there has been no law broken. ALL Laws have numbers. Those numbers reference the section of the Constitution that the law was written under. Socialists seem to think that laws can be whipped up out of thin air and vitriol. That ain’t the way it works.
Here is a place for you to start;
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/
If that doesn’t work for you, here is another;
http://wings.buffalo.edu/law/bclc/web/website/allcodes2.htm

The really confusing thing for Socialists about the law is that it’s the same for every one. So no matter which google entry you select, you will still get the same laws. Amazing!!!!!!
Meanwhile, what the Demonrats are putting together is a good old fashioned ‘Revolutionary Justice Committee’, the sort of thing ALL Socialist coups put into place after winning. Soon we will be seeing enemy of the state trials. After the enemies of the state are dealt with, the RJC will move on to ‘useful fools, such as yourself. Socialists figure that once they are in power, those useful fools are no longer useful. So they line them up against the wall to prevent others from using them. Good Luck buddy! You are gonna need it.

This might help you understand the process;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_procedure

Apr 26, 2009 - 7:40 pm 88. Class Clown:

79. ChipD,

I read all the comments, and I specifically chose not to include you for exactly that reason.

I oppose torture. However, what we are seeing here is political vengeance, not actual wrestling with law and moral principle. That will lead to disaster.

Incidentally, the Atlantic Monthly ran a really good article, maybe 3 years ago, about torture, interrogation, and the uses and limitations of either. I found it very enlightening.

See you around.

Apr 26, 2009 - 7:43 pm 89. typos_R_us:

What tips over my giggle box is that while we argue about just exactly torture is, the Mad Dog Mullahs are busy building nukes.
Which is worse? Waterboarding (AKA Chinese water torture) or a nuke going off under the Queensboro Bridge? Decisions, decisions.

Apr 26, 2009 - 7:49 pm 90. Войска ПВО:

77. Bilgeman writes:

“..that in Calabrese, a “Pelosi” is a descriptive noun for a pig’s scrotum. And in the Sicilian dialect, a “Garofalo” is a syphillis chancre..”

..ah, beloved Bilgeman! You have [yet again] created another entry for my Crimestopper’s Textbook. Keep ‘em coming! You are the true master, comrade!

Thus, when you’re in southern Italy, and you hear a rustic talking to another, and you hear those two words, they may NOT be talking about American politics.

…of course, maybe they are after all.

Apr 26, 2009 - 7:50 pm 91. Delia:

77. Bilgeman:

“I have it on pretty good authority that in Calabrese, a “Pelosi” is a descriptive noun for a pig’s scrotum.”
~

LMFAO!

Pelosi does ‘boar’ me with her bacon loaded pork-bill. Ba-dump-bump! Cha-Ching!

Hey, remember when Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez were together and the paps called them, “Bennifer”? We need a name for Obama/Pelosi/Clinton (because Lord only knows the VP foot and mouth disease himself is under the bus already).

My submission? ‘Obampelosinton’ [try to say that ten-times fast]!

I feel dirty now. *shakes it off*

Blech!

Apr 26, 2009 - 8:02 pm 92. Mike Blackadder:

I tend to agree with Terry at #26. Conservatives need to learn to take this propaganda war more seriously. We tend to feel satisfied that the facts are on our side and dismiss the common narrative as uninformed and naive, but nonetheless don’t follow through to correct the narrative.

I think Republicans should be chomping at the bit to take this on in front of the American people. Though in reality I don’t have much faith in their ability to do so, because they’ve failed at this for the past eight years. You also have to ask how many Republicans will be willing to show support for any of Bush’s policies. ie. How many Republicans are happy to throw Bush under the bus and start with a clean slate? In this type of atmosphere where so many politicians are too cowardly to stand behind what is good for the country what can we expect from the deceptively named ‘Truth Commission’?

I expect very little except the common narrative that Bush is a criminal, even if the facts tell us otherwise. Unless the Republicans rally of course, in which case this will all blow up in Obama’s face.

Apr 26, 2009 - 8:12 pm 93. robotech master:

To 53. Derek:

I love the completely poorly educated… you do understand that the GC was in fact pretty much the first modern treaty that legalized torture… no probably not since you’ve never read it. You see the GC said that you couldn’t torture 2 groups of ppl. 1. Soldiers and 2. Civ who took no active part in the battle.

Now as anyone with a basic understand of laws knows… If you define groups of ppl in law you also define ppl into another group called “other”. You see the GC defines 3 groups. Soldiers, Civs, and everyone else. Soldiers and Civs can’t be tortured… however everyone else can be. This is simple basic law. O and add in the GC even if signed doesn’t apply if the other party doesn’t follow it… even if they signed it. Thus al qaeda which has neither signed nor even remotely attempted to follow the GC are OPEN FREAKING GAME.

As for libby I can see you have no idea about it and that would take alot longer to explain then the GC.

Apr 26, 2009 - 8:12 pm 94. Samizdat:

Venividivici,
Well, we’re getting off topic, but you are correct sir. The socialist government in Spain demonstrates it’s awsome job creating capacity while it pushes “green tech”. Am I correct that an economist studying Spain’s economy recently fixed its net loss of jobs at 41,000 as it pursues its green agenda? Do you think in our fair land we could create more jobs pursuing oil in our own waters or pursuing ephemeral solar tech jobs? I say ephemeral because Senator Feinstein has vowed to declare 600,000 acres of the Mojave desert off limits to solar energy production. This while Ted Kennedy has made it impossible to develope a wind farm in Nantucket Sound, his beloved sailing grounds.

This touches on national security because we have the resources to be energy independent, but are vain enough and distracted enough to risk our nations future in failing to develope them. We must truly be a fantastically wealthy country to afford such an arrogant and misguided policy, one that, I should add, disporpotionately impacts the poor and those on fixed incomes when shortages occur. Sorry to bring up these inconvenient facts that the MSM can’t seem to understand or publish, No wonder they are going out of business.

Apr 26, 2009 - 8:31 pm 95. fred:

Letting it ride allows Obonga to not pay a price for the introduction of proscription into American politics. The Genie is out of the bottle; everything has changed and the precedent is already set. Many people are in denial of this, but the low boil civil war that has been raging in this country since the 1960’s is quite possibly headed for a sanguinary chapter. A major line has been crossed, I’m afraid. At every juncture the collectivists/statists/Marxists have been upping the ante. This is probably why they are now very frantic to try to disarm the population or contrive ways to suborn the military, because they may be staring into the jaws of their own catastrophe.

If they want trails of lawyers, politicians, and spy agency people, including the former President and Vice President, I say bring it on. This is going to really bite them in the ass hard. If the Left cannot see their own potential Gotterdammerung, then they deserve to win the Darwin Award.

Apr 26, 2009 - 8:41 pm 96. Dave:

All the while the leftists continue with their lies and witch hunts for the purpose of distraction. They are sending this country into the ditch for an excuse to rebuild it as a serf plantation and need someone to demagogue. The current administration and congress is a disaster and all the smoke screens in the world will not cover it up.

That said, calling what methods that where used on the terror leaders torture is worthless agitprop and morally disgusting when one considers their goal of killing hundred or thousands of innocent people. Derek, Gary, and the rest of the leftists here should be ridiculed well and often.

Apr 26, 2009 - 8:47 pm 97. victor:

This is the victory of terrorism.

Terrorist being questioned in non-democrat way can say that someday you will be prosecuted for violation of laws of …, when the president favored by liberal/socialist/terrorists is elected.

CIA/FBI/Military will perform their duties in demorcrat way, which was the way in Clinton era till 911. During that era, US territories, including warships and consulates, were bombed many many times. The facts and statistics during the era indicated that demorcrat interrogation techniques could not obtain adequate intelligence information to prevent terrorist’s attacks.

After using enhanced interrogation techniques, US terroritories have not been bombed, significantly, till 2008. Facts and statistics confirm the hypothesis that use of enhanced interrogation techniques work to obtain information to prevent terrorist attacks.

However, terrorists can successfullt put the commanders against terrorism to prosecution troubles. This is a major victory of terrorism.

CIA/FBI/Military can resume their normal demorcrat way in war against terrorism. The facts and statistics were they failed to protect their citizens worldwide during the Vietnam War era, Carter era, Clinton era. Eventually, no one in these agencies will work non-demorcrat way because of the threat of criminal prosecution in the future. This is also a major victory for terrorism.

Ironically, Did Clinton bomb and kill may innocent citizens in Iraq, during the Monica Saga era? Should Clinton subject to criminal prosecution for war crimes?

Apr 26, 2009 - 9:06 pm 98. vivo:

63. Larry:

“Bush era interrogation methods were not criminal.”

This whole torture thing is very SIMPLE:

Look for the intellectual root of the problem, which would lead to the prosecution of Bush, Cheney and associates at Cabinet level.

If they don’t want to cooperate, waterboard them. They said it was not torture.

Apr 26, 2009 - 10:23 pm 99. Dave:

Dear Vivo,

What part of “go jump in the lake” do you not understand?

I actually think there should be a law against disagreeing with you.

You have to personally enforce it. I therefore look foward to breaking that law—-with impunity.

I would also look foward to being a juror in any trial of Bush adminstration officials you managed to put on trial.

You will then find yourself totally powerless to prevent or change my “not guilty” vote.

Stop letting your alligator mouth overload your tadpole ass.

Apr 26, 2009 - 11:09 pm 100. Derek:

For TyposRUs:

http://assembler.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/2441.html

For RobotechMaster:

First of all, you already lost the battle of application of geneva convention rights to guantanamo prisoners in Hamdan V. Rumsfeld. That whole habeas corpus, convention protections granted until trial thing. Second of all, your argument would hold weight if the fourth geneva convention didn’t exist. It does, and it doesn’t make exclusions for terrorists.

Apr 26, 2009 - 11:10 pm 101. Delia:

O-douche-bag hopefully didn’t bring the swine flu with him on his trippin’ back home.

The colors…alllllllll the pretty colors.

Apr 26, 2009 - 11:25 pm 102. AlanABQ:

Back the the ironically named ‘Truth Commission’.

They’re only calling it that because ‘Ministry of Truth’ was already taken. But in an odd meeting of dystopian fiction & real life, they are remarkably similar in their goals.

I think Bush’s real name must be George Emmanuel Goldstein Bush. Given the progressive’s long-standing hatred of Jews, it may as well be.

Heh. “Truth Commission”…what a disingenuous sham.

Apr 27, 2009 - 12:00 am 103. vivo:

99. Dave tadpolito:

“I actually think there should be a law against disagreeing with you. ”

There is something on those lines already, it’s called common sense.

Apr 27, 2009 - 5:23 am 104. Lynn B.:

# 21 gary
American officials should uphold all American “values” (whatever that means) by valuing American lives instead of terrorist lives. This is a shameful and disgusting overreach and it needs to stop. Obama is the most divisive Pres this country has ever elected. Even he knows the political fall out will hurt his administration. It sets a horrible precedent for any upcoming Administration. And, the yellowcake shipped from Iraq to Canada is enough proof of WMDs in Iraq.

Apr 27, 2009 - 6:10 am 105. drjohn:

So where’s the part about conservatives being torn about this? I want Pelosi’s a$$ on the stand under oath. I want the remainder of those memos released.

Tomorrow.

Apr 27, 2009 - 7:33 am 106. Stew:

I agree with the principle of this article but long for vindication of those who protected this country and vilification of the appropriate politicians. The root problem is that the majority of our political leaders are selfish unprincipled people more concerned for their reserved parking at Regan National. As a military combat veteran I have experienced every aspect of this so called torture except water boarding as training in the event of potential capture by an enemy. Big deal, I survived the experience. It is time for the strong in this country to once again take the leading roles in our country and send the America haters back to irrelevance. It is time to throw all the bums from both parties out and start new. By the way, the Geneva Conventions do not extend to non-combatants like terrorist. It even negates protections for a once captured escapee from killing in an attempt to escape from enemy forces. You should read the conventions before speaking as an expert on the subject.

Apr 27, 2009 - 7:48 am 107. Sebastian Shaw:

President Obama does not take terrorism seriously; he has a 9/10 mentality where the terrorists are simple criminals. This is what created the 9/11/01 in the first place.

President Obama’s hatred for America will give us another 9/11 event or worse.

Apr 27, 2009 - 8:14 am 108. Paul -Indiana:

Why is it that we allow a one-on-one situation such as a baby being aborted for the ‘welfare’ of the mother, but in a thousands-of-lives-saved vs the temporary discomfort of a terrorist, we get squeamish? Anyone who would trade any number of innocent lives to prevent a terrorist from enduring a few minutes of discomfort, or even true torture, is a moral idiot.

Apr 27, 2009 - 8:42 am 109. tanstaafl:

Anyone who would trade any number of innocent lives to prevent a terrorist from enduring a few minutes of discomfort, or even true torture, is a moral idiot.

As I’ve said elsewhere, given Obama’s stand on abortion (especially the atrocious methods of destroying the fetus in late term procedures) it’s a little weird when this President preaches about losing our “moral bearings” on the treatment of Guantanamo detainees.

Apr 27, 2009 - 10:22 am 110. BC:

To Bilgeman: Are you saying that those random, degraded, and lost WMD’s from a 20 yr old war between Iran and Iraq *were* the WMD’s Bush and his people were talking about all along? Really? Well, then, my bad — I thought they were referring to something else. But wouldn’t this mean that the US is still guilty for those landmines in Vietnam from the 60’s and early 70’s since they keep turning up and doing a lot, LOT more damage than those old Iraqi WMD’s?

Also if we are going to count a couple of meetings in the mid-90’s that never went anywhere as being pertinent several years later, how should we regard the no-if’s or but’s, very strong US support of Iraq and Hussein during the Reagan years? See http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82

By all accounts, Hussein was at least as brutal then, if not more so, as he was when we invaded, so does that mean Reagan supported terrorism by proxy? While all the evidence shows that Hussein really only supported the Palestinians in terms of terrorist groups, a terrorist group is still a terrorist group, no?

As far as as Iraqi pilots flying to Iran during the first Gulf war, they were just escaping — 90 Iraqi aircraft were destroyed in combat operations, and 16 were captured by ground forces. Apparently these were pilot decisions. Iran didn’t exactly decide to play nice all of a sudden, though — all of those escaping aircraft got impounded and were never returned after the war was over (Iran said they were reparations for the Iran-Iraq war).

Apr 27, 2009 - 10:25 am 111. Lynn B.:

#97 victor
Liberals (large L) do not care one way or the other. I’m a registered Dem and believe you are absolutely right. I don’t believe International Law should dictate US Law, nor do I believe in this witch hunt. I would admittedly love to see Pelosi get hers (she’s the “mean” America) but it just isn’t worth setting a precedent to give the Islamic terrorists a victory over us. Geneva Conventions do NOT apply to non-military combatants. When it comes to this issue, Obama has made a huge mistake and I won’t forget it or forgive it.

Apr 27, 2009 - 10:38 am 112. robotech master:

To 100. Derek:

I would suggest you read the fourth GC since it does include terrorists in the “other” grouping. I would suggest you also understand that the GC is a pay to play… thus if you don’t obey it you don’t get it. Terrorists don’t obey the GC thus can not legally to given GC benefits. In fact to give benefits to terrorists under the GC would be a violation of the GC… thus if we were to give POW or CIV status to terrorists this in fact could be considered a violation of the GC and international law.(and even a war crime)

Apr 27, 2009 - 10:39 am 113. typos_R_us:

Derek, at last some meat.

“defined as a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party;”

Please note that terrorists ARE NOT covered by GCIV.
YOu claim they are, but I don’t think Hamdan goes that far, and if it does, it is Judical over reach. Please cite me the cestion of the Constitution that gives the Judicary power to negotiate treaties. They can strike down a treatry, since under the US Legal system, a treaty becomes American law.

http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2005/2005_05_184/

I’m about half way thru the opinion and haven’t seen the SC give combatant rights to terrorists. I’ll keep reading later and if they do, then you have a convert. Right now I have things to do in the real world.

Apr 27, 2009 - 11:52 am 114. Peter the Bubblehead:

1. Derek wrote:
It’s not “criminalizing policy” to prosecute someone with existing laws. It simply means people that broke the law are being punished.

Peter writes: Please excuse me for coming to this discussion late, and perhaps this has already been covered in the coments, but do explain how it is possible to prosecute someone for something that was NOT illegal at the time. That’s like prosecuting under the current seatbelt laws because you didn’t wear a seatbelt in 1977.

Apr 27, 2009 - 12:07 pm 115. geoffgo:

Jennifer said:

“And even if the Left foolishly roots for political civil war, conservatives need not follow — no matter how tempting it might be.”

Like “what if we had a war and nobody came?

The Left has certainly declared for civil war by floating this tactic. They think they’ve got us covered. If we don’t argue for what’s right now, the Left will be able to continue to poison the population with the “evil Bush” mantra.

Get a spine. There will never be a better time to take on the Left. Later, we’ll be broke and liable to be procecuted for any objection.

Apr 27, 2009 - 12:07 pm 116. geoffgo:

Bob@6
he should have the courage to tell Ms. Pelosi and her allies to drop their quest for this 21st Century inquisition.

And Nancy & allies should be allowed to just “get away with it”?

Apr 27, 2009 - 12:11 pm 117. Peter the Bubblehead:

20. Ken Miller wrote:
The problem with worrying about the effect that the Minitruth would have on the willingness of competent people to stand up for this country is that that train has already left the station. The damage has already been done.

Peter writes: As I have said to family and co-workers, when the next attack comes (…note I did not write IF…), I only hope I am still alive to point my finger at Obama and his so-called administration.

Apr 27, 2009 - 12:21 pm 118. Bilgeman:

#110 BC:
“To Bilgeman: Are you saying that those random, degraded, and lost WMD’s from a 20 yr old war between Iran and Iraq *were* the WMD’s Bush and his people were talking about all along? Really? Well, then, my bad ”

Oh, please! A WMD is a WMD is a WMD, fella. (I notice that you lost the “quote marks” arond the acronym, so at least we all NOW recognize that they were indeed what is meant when the term “WMD” is used.

Why I had to drag you kicking and screaming to acknowledge this very simple fact is beyond me.

So let’s move along, then, to your NEXT indication of denial and prevarication, your use of the qualifiers:

“…random, degraded and lost.”

You MUST be joking, right? By what authority do you have it that any and all of these WMD’s were random, degraded and/or lost?

If your mind hasn’t been TOTALLY chewed into rat-holes, you might recall that Iraq submitted over 12,000 pages of documents to the UN in late 2002 to “prove” that it had NO WMD’S at ALL!.

Were these the WMD’s that Bush et al were talking about?

Yes.

Let’s again return to 2002. Everyone with two brain cells to rub together was very mindful of the possibility that since the 9/11 plot had been succesfully implemented, and we had already suffered a terrorist WMD strike, with fatalities, here in America,(for whom nobody has EVER been convicted, btw);
then another WMD strike on a much larger scale here in the homeland was well within the capability of our enemies.

Bush & Co. were talking about ANY and ALL of his WMD’s, chum

Now, drop the qualifiers and repeat after me:

“Iraq had 500 tons of yellowcake uranium.”

and:

“There WERE WMD’s found in Iraq.”

Can’t you face the truth? Can you not let it pass your lips?

“…how should we regard the no-if’s or but’s, very strong US support of Iraq and Hussein during the Reagan years?”

Easy…Hussein was killing Iranians by the acre and selling us cheap oil.

See? One of us can be honest.

“But wouldn’t this mean that the US is still guilty for those landmines in Vietnam from the 60’s and early 70’s since they keep turning up and doing a lot, LOT more damage than those old Iraqi WMD’s?”

Does it strike you odd at all, that you reproved me for swatting at doofus up there for throwing the underlying decisions behind the Iraq War into his rant, and yet here you are now reaching back to Viet Nam?

Peculiar, ain’t it?

Apr 27, 2009 - 12:22 pm 119. not so fast:

Quiz time for everybody. Who said this – “There is no place for abuse in what must be considered the family of man. There is no place for torture and arbitrary detention. There is no place for forced confessions. There is no place for intolerance of dissent. . . . the roots of American rule of law go back more than 700 years, to the signing of the Magna Carta. The foundation of American values, therefore, is not a passing priority or a temporary trend.”

Apr 27, 2009 - 12:27 pm 120. Peter the Bubblehead:

31. Sebastian Shaw wrote:
The Republicans need to stand aside as the Democrats eat themselves.

Peter writes: I have to agree.

Apr 27, 2009 - 12:38 pm 121. typos_R_us:

Ok, Hamdan vs. Rumsfeld was a political decision, NOT a legal one. The trial was overturned on a technical matter, NOT a legal one.
Read the conclusion. For a trial to be legal, the defendant has to be present. They can be gagged and in chains, but still present.
This was a political compromise reached by the court. It gave the left the acquital they wanted and left Hamdan in jail, which is what the right wanted.
The Prosecutor screwed the pooch here. If he had covered Hamdan’s eyes and ears so he couldn’t see or hear the secrets of how he was found, then the trial would have been legal.

Personally, I think torture has it’s place, as uncomfortable as that place may be.
Torture is thousands of years old. Throughout that dismal history , it has been mostly illegal. Note that making it illegal hasn’t stopped it and never will. Waterboarding itself is just a variation on the Chinese water torture that goes back thousands of years.
What needs to be done is for torture to come out of the back room and into the parlor. Set limits and controls on time and methods thru public debate. Believe it or not, this would be the most effective way to end torture. One of the controls could be that anyone with a license to torture would have to have gone through that torture their selves to be allowed to practice it on others.
That would go a LOT farther toward stopping the practice then making it illegal. Remember the main purpose of torture is to make torturers happy. Once in a blue moon, they come up with a nugget that makes others happy.
As far as preventing terrorist attacks, it’s delusional to think torture will stop them. It MIGHT stop a particular attack, but that doesn’t matter. Terrorism is based on the oft proved fact that the terr just has to get lucky once, while the state has to be right every time. That is impossible, of course.
Torture just allows the deluded to reinforce their delusion that they can stop EVERY attack. You fight terror by going over to the terrorist’s house, blowing it up and killing everything inside. That creates more terrorists, which you then treat the same way. Eventually, they smarter ones look for a tool besides terrorism to fight with. This is why guerrilla ( terrorist, irregulars, etc.) wars are so long and bloody. It is also why 90% of the time, the terrorist loses. Stoooopid ones die until the smart ones outnumber them, at which point there is room for a political settelment, IF the government is smart enough to take it. It the ruling class isn’t that smart, the stoooopid ones breed back to the point where there are enough of them to return to terrorism again.
Look at Ireland. The Irish have been waging low level war against the English since BEFORE they were English. Ever other generation, there is peace, until the stoopid ones breed back and start the war again. Then the Brits kill off another generation of fools and the ecycle starts again.
Same for the Basque in Iberia. It looks like the Arabs in Israel are going down the same path.
Torture is an essential part of low level warfare. Interdependent, you can’t stop one without stopping the other.

Apr 27, 2009 - 12:46 pm 122. CanadianMike:

I’ve always wondered if Pelosi and Obama secretly despise each other. I mean someone as power hungry and morally challenged as she is can’t be particularly pleased that a political neophyte (unless you count voting “present”) has jumped past her to the head of the line. I wouldn’t be at all suprised to learn that she was a deliberate secondary target of this stink bomb. Obama has to know that she was well aware of what was going on. This whole mess is going to make her life extremely complicated. If she goes down I expect to see the sharpest set of cat claws in history. Obama had better be prepared for the raking of his life.

Apr 27, 2009 - 2:29 pm 123. Samizdat:

Typos-R-us,
I agree with portions of your post at #121. I think you are right that you go after terrorists with direct action and apply unremmiting pressure.

However, I am not buying two points, the first being that enhanced interrogation doesn’t work. It has a demonstrated track record of working and it was used effectively on specified certain al queda lieutenants after corroboration that cross checked information showed they were withholding other info.

The second point you are in error on is in regards to your analysis of Irish history vis a vis Great Britain. While it is true that during Roman times the Irish were known to raid England, ussually to aquire slaves, since the spread of Catholicism there has been an unremmiting repression of the Irish by GB. This started after Strong Bow and was exacerbated by Henry the VIII when the Irish rejected his demand that they submit to the authority of the Anglican church. It was accelerated by the genocide, and I use the term knowing its full meaning, inflicted by Oliver Cromwell. Wolfe Tone and others tried to cast off the mantle of GB hegemony at various times with limited success. Finally, after the Easter Uprising and WWI a deal was made that ceded the 6 counties in the north to the Crown. The continued violence decends from that illfated bargain. Don’t treat English repression as some tit for tat exchange of violence where the Irish were always the terrorists, if you persist with that argument you are exposing your ignorance regarding Irish history.

By the way, I hope that hell has a special hot rock where Cromwell sits near Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and, well you get the picture.

Apr 27, 2009 - 3:16 pm 124. Jim Baker:

I say Republicans should be howling, bring it on! The Dems are well aware that this truth commission crap would result in a severe compromise of our ability to wage war of any kind in the future. Even they aren’t reckless enough to hamstring the Obama administration with this. So, if you call their bluff, they will back down and the issue will finally be put to rest, except for the hard core enemies of our country in our midst. But don’t shy away from them. They need this humiliation for playing these political games all the time. They bank on the so called news media never calling them out, so the Republicans should. If Pelosi and Al Gore were Republicans, they would never have gotten away with the lies they each told in the last week. Both are completely incompetent. But they have lots of company in Washington this year.
For now, our military will just have to use a take no prisoners approach.

Apr 27, 2009 - 3:48 pm 125. EdGi:

Ahh, broke the law (a moral compass??), giving legal opinions contrary to lefty party line is a criminal act? Obi/Holder already outed a large number of real agents for political purposes, but only Libby is a criminal? The Daniel Pearl thingee is not to be discussed, but the Al Queda cummunity organizers “rights” must be catered to? WoW, go for it Oby, you’re bringing a back-stabber knife to a gunfight.

Apr 27, 2009 - 4:14 pm 126. typos_R_us:

“However, I am not buying two points, the first being that enhanced interrogation doesn’t work. It has a demonstrated track record of working and it was used effectively on specified certain al queda lieutenants after corroboration that cross checked information showed they were withholding other info.”

I think we differ in what the word ‘work’ means. If enhanced interrogation is working, why are there still terrorists trying to kill us?
If by working you mean any one particular attack was foiled, I say, “So What”? You cannot solve the problem by defeating any one attack. That leads to a game that you cannot win.
Moslim’s have a lot more ‘not-so-smart’ bombs then we have smart bombs. Foiling one attack just means they try again some other time, some other place. My solution to the Got-mo question is to amputate their ( any terrorist caught) left hand and right foot, then send them back home. So instead of 97 virgins, they get a peg and a hook. Think of how sitting in front of the moaque and begging for alms will affect recruiting.
Back in ‘01, when the Air Force and a few CIA types were helping the northern alliance defeat the taliban, the fundies in Pakistan recruited a bunch ( 8 to 12 thousand) of jihadist from Pakistan to go to Afghanistan to help the taliban. I think we should have done a ‘highway of death’ on the convoy. If we had there wouldn’t be any problem with Pakistan today and Iraq would have gone much better (quicker).
Meanwhile, if the Demonrats do war crimes against Bush, then the next go around, the Republicans will do war crimes trials against Clinton and the Usurper. Carter too, since his botched invasion of Iran was illegal as hell.

Apr 27, 2009 - 5:41 pm 127. Wally Lind:

Rubbish, Pelosi will never be brought to account for her “selective” memory. She will never volunteer to testify and will never be called via subpoena. The democrats will outnumber the republicans on any commission or board, and they will never allow it.

Apr 27, 2009 - 9:43 pm 128. Robohobo:

“…if the Left foolishly roots for political civil war, conservatives need not follow…”

And if there is not a choice but the Left insists on going down this road? Then can we fight for our figurative lives and hope to show them for the enemies of the Republic we think they are?

Just askin’.

Apr 27, 2009 - 10:58 pm 129. AlanABQ:

What an odd phenomenon. Progressives can cite precedent out the wazoo where an American president is concerned, but when it comes to a member of the Democrat party pretending to be one, they get silent.

Go ahead & challenge them on it; they’ll only revert to how everything from man-made global warming to dinosaur extinction is all W’s fault. And they can prove it! How?

By endlessly echoing one another. After all, if you say something enough times, in becomes irrefutable proof by way of consensus.

Apr 28, 2009 - 4:29 am 130. Samizdat:

Typos-R-us,
I agree with your call for direct action on the “highway of death”. However, your dismisive attitude towards the success of enhanced interogation avoids the fact that a number of mass murder plots were broken up after enhanced interogation obtained actionable intelligence. These included the attack on the tallest building on the west coast and multiple airplane suicide hijacks. These “battles” were won by our side; you don’t dismiss a battle won due to enhanced interogation simply because the war has not yet been won. That is the triumph of the perfect over the possible.

It is also important to me that proper credit be given to the forces that anihilated the Taliban and Al queda during the 2001 campaign. While it is true that some Airforce forward observers were involved in the conflict, and the CIA played a pivotal supporting role, the lions share of the action was carried out by Green Berets. There are several excellent books on the subject including “Masters of Chaos” and “Chosen Soldier”. Our Special Forces soldiers deserve national gratitude for their accomplishments in the conflict since 2001. They are the best of the best at direct action, sabotage, reconaisance, and field diplomacy. General Petraeus employed Green Beret tactics on a mass scale during the Iraqi “Surge” with spectacular results that even President Obama is recognizing now.

Apr 28, 2009 - 4:49 am 131. BC:

To Bilgeman: Are you serious? See: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13480264

To quote: “But defense officials said Thursday that the weapons were not considered likely to be dangerous because of their age, which they determined to be pre-1991.

“Pentagon officials told NBC News that the munitions are the same kind of ordnance the U.S. military has been gathering in Iraq for the past several years, and ‘not the WMD we were looking for when we went in this time.’”

Apr 28, 2009 - 6:36 am 132. typos_R_us:

“The democrats will outnumber the republicans on any commission or board, and they will never allow it.”

Until the next election. Then it’s turn about is fair play.
Clinton committed a war crime when he ordered the bombing of Kosovo. If Bush administration appointees can be charged, so can Clinton administration appointees. Carter is also open, since he had no authorization to land troops in the desert of Iran.
Are we going to end up like the English and dig up dead politicians and behead them?
snipped from wikipedia;
“In 1661, Oliver Cromwell’s body was exhumed from Westminster Abbey, and was subjected to the ritual of a posthumous execution, as were the remains of John Bradshaw and Henry Ireton. (The body of Cromwell’s daughter was allowed to remain buried in the Abbey.) Symbolically, this took place on 30 January; the same date that Charles I had been executed. His body was hanged in chains at Tyburn. Finally, his disinterred body was thrown into a pit, while his severed head was displayed on a pole outside Westminster Hall until 1685. ”

That is a pretty high bar for BDS to beat.

Apr 28, 2009 - 8:43 pm 133. BC:

To typos_R_us: “Clinton committed a war crime when he ordered the bombing of Kosovo.” Ummm, no: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,978373,00.html

Apr 29, 2009 - 3:33 am 134. pappy:

OXYMORON for a lifetime: Abortion good torture bad.in this case, i pick abortion of terrorists on the battlefield.

Apr 29, 2009 - 9:35 am

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