Report: Rumsfeld OK'd Prisoner Program

[Whiskers]

Was there ever any doubt?

'NEW YORK - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized the expansion of a secret program that encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners to obtain intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq (news - web sites), The New Yorker reported Saturday.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...d=542&ncid=716

[krunky]

Well, we shall have to see how this pans out - but I don't actually doubt it for a second. This white house administration has wanted total, unquestioned, unaccountable control all the way down the line. And this insane congress has given them the nearly unprecedented ability to carry out all of it's designs. It appears that fear of appearing "unamerican" has driven all doubt from the minds of our representives for all manner of foolhardy legislation - like that of the Patriot Act.

To my mind, this administration has already purposefully committed acts of impeachable proportions. Sadly, most americans can't be pulled away from the commericals long enough to notice that fact. Yet the crimes of this administration are off the scale, making Watergate seem like the ordinary break in it actually was by comparison. We see the everyday looting of our monies and the continually erosion of our civil liberties and yet Junior's approval ratings remain ridiculously high. I am amazed that we do not see a call for his impeachment from both sides of the aisle already. I mean, he is ONLY the chief executive - the buck stops on his desk.

I believe that we shall look back on this era as a very dark one in our history - when we let fear rather than stony resolve guide our choices. And I think there shall be hell to pay.

Freedom is not free, but it does not come so cheaply as to be paid for by the easy blood of false enemies either. Freedom also requires transparency.

Question authority.

[L'Etranger]

Let me remark one thing:
It would be a total misunderstanding to say the Geneva Conventions were only created to protect the weak ...
No, they also were intented to protect the strong against their strength!

[L'Etranger]

The "Guardian's" cartoonist is very much on target most of the time.
This time he watches tell-tale body-language:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/cartoons/s...216675,00.html

At the same time I think President Bush is secretly preparing to drop the embarassing Defence Secretary and building up a successor. Why would Mr. Wolfowitz otherwise admit that certain practices were not sanctioned by the Geneva Conventions. These things are no coincidence. He's been told to warm up on the "reserve bank", I tell you.

[Bill]

These are dark days. Of course the Pentagon is denying the links, but there is a second story this morning (I think also in the New Yorker) defending the story.

If true (and I am not arguing it isn't), there is no debate; the Secretary should face the same (if not stronger) sanctions than the actors on the ground in Iraq are facing. Isn't that the result of the chain of command?

[VonWeiner]

Bill,

I guess your agreement in these topics that top the list has made everyone silent. No one has really replied for most of the day.

In "Report: Rumsfeld OK'd Prisoner Program" Bill wrote:

If true (and I am not arguing it isn't), there is no debate; the Secretary should face the same (if not stronger) sanctions than the actors on the ground in Iraq are facing. Isn't that the result of the chain of command?

In "Torture in Abu Ghraib Prison" Bill wrote:

I would guess, though, that if there was any issue that EVERYONE here could agree on, it would be that censorship is wrong.

In "King George visits his subjects..." Bill wrote:

This makes me uncomfortable as well

In " An interesting theory on Nick Berg (American beheaded)" Bill wrote:

You all should know that I am ususally on the other side of this discussion, but I definitely think there is a lot more to this Berg issue than is being reported at this time.

Sounds like you're in a good mood. It's got me thinking though. What would everyone here do if you suddenly agreed with them all the time? It would be a nice experiment (and perhaps a cruel one :lol: ). You should try it. I can see it now...

Poster writes:
"Bush and his cronies deserve to be tried for war crimes"

Bill replies:
"Why yes, yes they should be. I think they are definitely criminals."

or

Poster writes:
"John Kerry is amazing and smart. He needs to be the next president."

Bill replies:
"Kerry is a genius. He's got my vote for sure."

8O
I think some people here would have their entire sense of reality shaken up (or they would think you were the victim of an alien abduction). They would be begging for the "old" Bill. :lol:

[Bill]

I've been liquored up for the past three days, and those posts are the result. I will go back and edit.

Haha, no, they are real. We're gonna have to find something else to argue about. Although, I will say, your two examples are a start. There is no danger at this time that I will be on the "War Crimes" bandwagon or the "Kerry is King" bandwagon. So we still have something to discuss.

[Whiskers]

It was fairly obvious from the start that the military's enlisted had been directed to "soften up" those prisoners. Under the right conditions, our government would soften us up before we pay our taxes.

Bill's well structured arguments are a sign of true intelligence. How could an intelligent human being not see that this torture is systemic. Furthermore, I don't think anyone suspected Bill of knowing it all or being a closet torturer.

We just needed information to present to him and others that said: hey the government doesn't have our best interests at heart. Conservatism has its place.

[Bill]

Berry, thanks for the kind words.

"I don't think anyone suspected Bill of... being a closet torturer."

Jeez, I hope not. I cried at the end of Finding Nemo, for pete's sake.

"We just needed information to present to him and others that said: hey the government doesn't have our best interests at heart. Conservatism has its place."

Well, take this philosophically and not literally, because it probably runs counter to some things I have said in the past, but it really concerns me about how "conservatism" is being confused with "not having the country's best interests at heart" or worse, "torturers". I'm eyes open enough to know why, but I don't have to like it. Reagan's genius, in the eyes of many, was making "liberal" a dirty word, and Clinton's genius was making the population forget that he was a liberal. The connotation wasn't fair, and Clinton probably could have done more to fix the problem instead of distance himself from the problem. But no one can fault Clinton for his expendiency; just the opposite. No more than Clinton's promiscuity was indicative of his or other liberals' political positions, Bush and Co.'s actions are not indicative of all conservatives. Nor should anyone necessarily desert the conservative platform IF that platform is willing to differentiate between the general principles of the the conservative party, and what the party has become in the hands of (I believe) the Christian Right. My hope is to someday soon have a conservative candidate that is willing to square off with the Christian Right and stake some of the moderate ground that Clinton tread in the 90's.

Although I choose to debate on the side of economic conservatives, you will note that I have on several occassions advocated having multiple candidates from each party running in November (as opposed to during the primaries) to ensure that the political wishes of the most people are expressed come election day. Put another way, I am conservative (albeit mildly so) and will not change that based on current events, but would not choose George Bush as the best or even as a good representative of my political views. He and I differ on almost every platform except economics.

[Whiskers]

Well put and I agree to a point. My personal experience is that of the conservatives I've known, most have been racist and place the responsibility of their brutal actions on an imaginary god. All the recent "Republicans" I've encountered have felt it's okay to kill women and children in the beds while they sleep with mortar rounds if it means that we get the bad guys.

It's heartening when real people who understand many issues can debate them despite one particular bent or another. Not that you're bent or anything. :)

[Doc]

No more than Clinton's promiscuity was indicative of his or other liberals' political positions, Bush and Co.'s actions are not indicative of all conservatives. Nor should anyone necessarily desert the conservative platform IF that platform is willing to differentiate between the general principles of the the conservative party, and what the party has become in the hands of (I believe) the Christian Right. My hope is to someday soon have a conservative candidate that is willing to square off with the Christian Right and stake some of the moderate ground that Clinton tread in the 90's.

Although I choose to debate on the side of economic conservatives, you will note that I have on several occassions advocated having multiple candidates from each party running in November (as opposed to during the primaries) to ensure that the political wishes of the most people are expressed come election day. Put another way, I am conservative (albeit mildly so) and will not change that based on current events, but would not choose George Bush as the best or even as a good representative of my political views. He and I differ on almost every platform except economics.

I think you're hitting something that makes other conservatives I know pretty uncomfortable, especially lately. I have no doubt that the Christian Right is driving the present administration. The Christian Right conveniently looks away from many administration policies that are counter to any Christian beliefs that I know, simply because the administration supports many policies that have become Christian Right benchmarks (eg. abortion, same-sex marriage). They would rather wholeheartedly support one of their own, who supports part of their beliefs rather than support someone else who would threaten all of them, or not support anyone. Get your hand in the cookie jar somehow. Of course the administration needs this kind of blind support. The Christian Right will vote for Bush no matter what else happens in the next couple of months. No matter what.

What this does, of course, is alienate many people who are much more moderate, as well as those who are fiscal conservatives without so much of the social conservatism ( I think that partially characterizes you, Bill). Cater to the extremes and you rob the middle of its voice and its feelings of representation. This seems to be a common theme in many of the debates and discussions here. Many of us, regardless of beliefs, feel very poorly represented by politicians and the political process.

What scares me most is that the drum-banging ideologues on both sides of the political spectrum are killing real debate, and making issues matter less and less in American politics. If someone like Bill, for whom I have great respect, gets shut out of many of the conservative discussions and stances, that leaves people with blind faith in their own ideas talking over people on the other side who have as much blind faith in their ideas. I'm admittedly not mainstream politically, so I don't always expect to fit comfortably in politcal equations (at the risk of speaking for others, I'm pretty sure there are others of a similar mind here). I'm used to being left out (no pun intended.) However, when people who represent a significant part of middle America aren't considered in the national debate, we're all in trouble.

[Bill]

"My personal experience is that of the conservatives I've known, most have been racist and place the responsibility of their brutal actions on an imaginary god. All the recent "Republicans" I've encountered have felt it's okay to kill women and children in the beds while they sleep with mortar rounds if it means that we get the bad guys."

Let's all think about this for one minute. Impartially. I am in no way questioning Berry; to my knowledge, his integrity is beyond reproach. Nor do I for a second take this as any kind of personal discussion. But his statement explains more to me about the nature of the last four months of posting here than all other comments combined. "[M]ost conservatives I have known have been racist". "Most republicans I've encountered have felt it's okay to kill women and children... if it means we get the bad guys".

I'm sensitive to this problem (the Buchanan "Take Back America" speech in 1992 was an especially embarrassing and embittering moment) but it is disheartening, sad, and sometimes angering to think that someone somewhere (not you Berry) is potentially dismissing a reasonably well-thought out argument on taxation or on offshoring becuase someone who voted like me (and in most cases there are only four choices: R, D, I, or no vote at all) may be a racist or may have taken the "bomb them back to Christ's time" approach to world diplomacy. The racism and excessive "patriotism" that I have know cuts across all political boundaries (see my other post re: Atlanta), and is predominantly economic more than political (although I realize there is some correlation between economics and political persuasion).

Forget all our arguments. Forget who is in office and who may be. We should be willing and able to draw sharper distinctions when they warrant.