Joe Scarborough: Maybe it would have been better for a couple of other cities to burn instead of waterboarding
By Heather Saturday Apr 18, 2009 8:00am
Apparently Joe Scarborough hasn't read either this article -- Detainee's Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots -- or this one: Tortured Reasoning. If he has, it didn't stop him from reading the RNC Talking Point of the day and doing some fearmongering on Morning Joe. If he really wants to debate the issue, I'd like to see him debate Jonathan Turley rather than have David Gregory splitting hairs about whether some of this was right because Democratic administrations didn't follow the law either by using rendition.
Scarborough: And you know, David, there are people I have great respect for that believe that waterboarding is torture and what makes this issue, and I would actually like to have a public debate about waterboarding. What makes waterboarding such a complicated issue is that it was in fact the most effective technique that led to the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed by its use on prisoners before Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was captured and then it led to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed revealing some of al Qaeda's greatest secrets afterward through waterboarding.
It was obviously very, very effective but it is also very, very offensive to some Americans and I suspect we need to have that debate out in the open because it's not being used now. And it's not being used now because al Qaeda leaders know if their people are captured they're going to put them in a ten degree angle. We're going to pour water on them for forty seconds and we're going to make them think they're drowning except they'll know we're not going to really let them drown. So why, maybe we should have this debate out in the open.
Gregory: Well I think having that public debate is very important to find out in fact whether these things do work. And that's the debate. Because there are people on the right and the left who say look, you can tout various examples but the reality is that these techniques actually don't produce the desired result and they have a compromising affect on those who do it and ultimately endanger American lives whether it's US troops overseas or others.
But I mean to your point this is why you do need a kind of public debate to talk about in less stressful times, you know what stressful techniques actually work. What's the morality of it? What's the legality of it? What's the best policy? Because making these decisions under duress is very difficult but that's when you need a real vetting of the effectiveness of these policies.
Scarborough: Alright ... David brings up another good point that I would love debated in full because when we have these debates and the sound bytes are thrown out there one of the things that David said you'll hear is people will say waterboarding is not effective.
Well, history has shown over the past seven years that actually it is very, very effective. Let's tell the truth. Let's talk about what information we got with waterboarding and then we can debate it.
....It's effective but is it worth it....Maybe it would have been better for a couple of other cities to burn ... um ... instead of waterboarding and we can have that debate. If you'd like Washington DC and Los Angeles to be obliterated by a nuclear blast I certainly respect your opinion and I think we should just talk about it.
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How dare he continue to question if water boarding is torture...
And Mika just sits there again and again... Her father must often be ashamed.
No it isn't, Joe Scarborough. It's wrong, it's torture and it's illegal.
What is Mika's purpose on that show? She sure didn't say much. She actually looked uncomfortable listening to Joe blather on. What a pathetic lot they are.
Christopher Hitchens drives me crazy, for the war when he could make a buck, against religion when he can make a buck,
But he did get waterboarded. He seems convinced it was torture. Joe, is it your turn now?
I like how they have all along been saying it was only used three times on three people. Really? Read the reports Joe. Sounds like it was SOP.
Lying apologist SOBs. Take them off the air. Shutter the doors at Fox. and get our country back...
And they only spied on foreign terrorists too. Remember that line. No American was spied on.
These "reporters" fall for the same trick every time.
Obviously they get paid to be wrong, otherwise they'd be out of a job.
...professional wrestling. You know, when the referee is somehow tricked, yet again, into looking the other way so something dishonest can take place.
"News" coverage in this country is about as genuine as professional wrestling. Good guys vs. bad guys, cops vs. robbers, white hats vs. black hats--all "overseen" by hapless "referees." But most importantly, brought to you by someone trying to make a buck by sponsoring the show.
They fall for "Only foreigners" and "Only waterboarding."
We know there was child rape involved in these torturings. We know there was sodomy involved. We know there was cutting of the genitalia and application of electric shock. We know.
We know the spying involved our own people, our media, activists. We know Americans and Canadians and Brits were tortured.
All in all, Spain and the UN will make it very hard for members of the US to travel soon. But thats FAR FAR FAR FAR from what they deserve.
but I was impressed when he allowed himself to be waterboarded.
Very few people would be willing to undergo such a horrible experience to make their point and Hitchens has my respect for doing so.
I find hitchens to be affectatious.
of world class proportions
But not stupid.
So you think it's smart to announce to the world that you are going to shave your genitals?
How about chainsmoking cigarettes?
Appearing on cable TV drunk?
Smart?
Maybe it was just the booze talking.
... that before undergoing waterboarding, Hitchens just thought it was a walk in the park, and he was doing that to prove it.. Boy, did THAT experience open his eyes!
didnt make the experience any less horrific...at least according to him
there is no debate to be had
america does not torture
we prosecuted the japanese after ww2 for using the exact same procedure
waterboarding is torture...it is illegal...and the guilty parties must pay
oh, and hitchins really does think religion is bunk
Go let your hair down tonight....have some fun....get over yourself and get on with it already....
All of your posts are transparent and obvious.....I can usually predict the position you take just by your name. Is that a good sign? Somehow, I knew you would express such sentiments in your post above...
You can watch him yourself. Hitchens, Scarborough, Banana Republic:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x02f9zhd7s8
Her father had alot to help set this whole thing up.
The last time her father was on "Morning Joe" -- he almost got into a fight with Joe. And Mika sits there like she is SO torn -- between her daddy and her master. You can tell that her dad loves her -- why ELSE would he waste time going in that hideous show?
Apparently Joe is happy to be the newest member of the Axis of Evil. NOrth Korea, Iran and the good ol' U. S of A.
We have North Korea mocking our human rights standards while holding American journalists in prison. We have another US journalist being tried in a closed court in Iran for the same justifications we use in our kangaroo courts. We have become one of the Axis of Evil in regards to human rights.
N. KOREA:
IRAN:
U.S.:
In the words of Sami al-Haj upon his release:
This is what we did to an innocent man:
Winning the hearts and minds, one torture at a time.
Klausutis
Hey, that was a vicious desk that leaped up and bit the back of that poor woman's head. Scarboy is just lucky he wasn't there when that desk attacked.
Okay, what terrorist plots have BEEN foiled by waterboarding?
Saying we have, but it's classified ain't enough.
Especially since classification meant nothing to booshco
Like Valerie Plame's.
Watched the movie "Good Night and Good Luck" again last night. So sad how things haven't progressed much since then. If something is classified, then it's not evidence. Plain and simple.
I agree with one caveat.
We still don't know what happened around New Years 2000.
But we do have the 9-11 Report saying that the Clinton administration managed to stop around 60 terrorist attempts.
here in the states and torture them. I'm talking about Joe, Hannity, Bill'O, Rush, Beck and Savage. We could solve most of all the terrorist plots right here in the good old U.S.A.
Joe Scarborough is just another right-wing spit-shooter and of course first-rate--jackass! These right wing jerks never cease to amaze me. Scarborough needs to be taken away to the nearest insane asylum.
On another note: Glen Beck, Michael "Savage" Weiner, Sean "Hannity" (his real last name is Hennedy,) William "Bill" O'Reilly, Rusty Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs, Mike Gallagher, Mike Reagan, Hugh Hewitt, Laura Ingraham, Michelle Malkin, Neil Boortz, G. Gordon Liddy, William Bennett, Joe Scarborough, (locals here in the state of Connecticut--WTIC 1080 a.m.'s Jim Vicevich and Ray Dunaway; WDRC 1360 a.m.'s Brad Davis, and Dan Lovallo), Mark Levine---are all Right-Wing Extremists. Yes, these Right-Wing Talk Radio Show Hosts are Right-Wing Extremists!! Too bad if they cannot handle the truth about themselves.
Yes, these people like to cry and whine about the DHS Report. Well too bad about them. These people stir up trouble and rabble rousers every time they get behind the microphone, but, whine and cry like big babies when called on the carpet about their actions. Yes, they have "free speech" rights, but so don't we who think they are spouting traitorous words on the public air waves. All of these people have very serious mental problems, which needs to be treated by psychiatrists. I am not kidding that these right wing hosts are psychotic and deranged. It does not take a rocket scientist to understand how disturbed they are. If anyone has mental disorders, it's these right wing talk show hosts mentioned above and their followers.
These right wingers are very deranged people. They need to be locked up in the nearest mental hospital because they are a danger to not only themselves but to others. Yes, individuals can be committed to mental hospitals if it is determined one is a threat to others or society. These right wingers meet this criteria and then some.
if we tortured them, they would even ask for commitment to the mental institution.
Can you imagine if Barry Goldwater, who mellowed in his later years, were alive today hear what the Republican party has become? Seems to me he would say they have become anti-American, unpatriotic thugs. Nothing more. Joe Scar is a perfect example of the new model.
Libertarian?
Funny thing was Liber was a Roman god of festivities, joyousness and drinking, comparable to Bacchus and Dionyseus.
I always wondered if calling the page of a book a leaf came from the Welsh word for book llyfr, like the Llyfr Coch Hergest, and the Llyfr Gwynn Rhydderch, earlier sources of the 14th century book The Mabinogion.
Or does she just turn letters like Vanna?
She's not paid to talk. That's a man's job. (Must be Catholic).
But for want of a single consonant Vanna would be a bowel turner.
Typical Neo-Con response, Joe; "We can agree to have a discussion, just as you understand that if you don't do as I say, big cities and millions of people will be obliterated by nuclear bombs" And the way, Joey - I love how you waited until David was no longer on-camera and able to respond to your tantrum, real adult Joe, real adult.
Seriously, Joe is actually dumb. He is different from the others because his is actually brain dead, the others are just liars.
I feel sorry for these people what kind of inner values do they have, to support filling another persons sinus cavity's with water while they are tied up, is just out of my league. Think about it, Joe.
that the show of a great leader is how he makes the decision to break the law, to determine that the ends justify the means.
Shouldn't the mark of a great leader be, instead, that he will uphold and enforce the law, regardless of his personal positions.
my bad. Should have said "that he or she
I wonder what is Joe's opinion on the young American-Iranian women held in Iran for spying? Should she be waterboarded? Because we said it's not torture, so it's legal. In the eyes of Iran it's national security, they don't want a couple of their cities burning. Joseph(McCarthy)Scarborough---Idiot.
Some one should ask Joe!
Joe Scarborough needs to be tortured. Or maybe the next city he visits overseas can be bombed with him in it.
Joe Scarborough is a jackass!
Is a jackass an anal onanistic device?
They used a hose to drown these innocent suspects. Roll the tapes.
Every traitor who has been involved must be removed Monday. Trials, President Obama blanket pardons after the expose trials but not one of these traitors can be allowed to stay on or collect retirement. Through their actions they have forfeited their career and any benefits. They are comman criminals led by a mob boss. WEED UM" OUT
includes people from both parties.. they were protecting their operation, 'our way of life', .. The Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/15/offs...) reported on the tax burden shifted, by state, by off-shoring of some of the mob's assets which of course is just part of the mob's activities..
I don't know if Obama really wants to do anything but given the deadly nature of the mob.. he's gonna need a mob behind him..
Enough of right-wing cruelty and stupidity. My son just joined the military and will be in Afghanistan in a few months. If he is captured and waterboarded or tortured in any way I will hold Joe and his ilk responsible.
Dude, sending your child to war when you know he will be looked up like a Nazi soldier. Who's people torture and are complicit in mass killings and genocide?
What in gods name are you thinking? He'll be like those Germans telling their children why they THOUGHT they were doing good while they participated in evil.
I've heard them spoken on TV. I hope you listen to how sad they are that they did what they did against the world.
You might never get the stain off your soul.
Are you responding to my post about my son going to Afghanistan? If so are your comments meant to be taken satirically? Otherwise I don't understand. I did not and would not send my son to fight an illegal and immoral war. I despise war in all its forms. His decision was about getting his life together and trying to have a viable future. He's 27 years old. He joined the Army because they have the best monetary incentives. The Army essentially made him an offer he couldn't refuse. $25,000 bonus. College tuition. He understands the insanity of our involvement in the middle east. But he is now dedicated to making sure that he and his fellow soldiers survive. I am scared to death that I might lose him but I am proud of his determination and strength in making this very difficult choice.
Oh boy that's a stomach burner. I don't think Krak was joking, maybe flipping out. When I was 20 I also wanted to join the military to find direction in my life, I was denied there was no war at the time. Too bad both grandfathers were in the military and I wanted to carry on the family name from with in.
Anyway I would never join now, not for 100k, it is principles and my moral values that would denie my greed for cash. Also another thing stopping me would be what they do to our soldiers when they are caught, it isn't water boarding!!! I can tell you that. You may find videos still on p2p networks of our captured soldiers, I dunno I couldn't stand to watch another................
Hope you watch Democracy Now.
for his expertise on torture.
I can't believe people pay to watch this shit.
most cables have fox in a basic package but you have to pay extra for MSNBC!
Happily (I think) I get CNN and BBC International, but no Fox. They are not perfect, but I do watch to see what people are saying. The BBC is more "balanced".
Poor Joe, can't extricate himself from the pile of dung he's been laying in now for years....if anyone feels sorry for him please notify your nearest mental health professional...for yourself !!
and end with expressions of sorrow for the fate of Lori Klausutis, his dead intern.
It's a wonder to me that nobody EVER mentions the poor girl, found dead in JoeScarz florida office...
A right-winger can't mention Sen. Kennedy without mentioning the death he was involved with. Good thing the liberal media is on the case. We'll have the truth about Lori's death any day now, I'm sure.
On a side note, if you want some good reporting on it, go to http://www.allhatnocattle.net
http://www.allhatnocattle.net/congressman_joe...
I haven't opened your links yet, but that's a favorite expression of Jim Hightower.
I was using my own variation of it the other day when someone on this site asked me about rick perry's Texas can seceed talk.
I said perry was all shag carpeting but no house.
He was probably ball boarding her.
Pea brain Scarborough can only reason, no he doesn't reason, think, no he never thinks... he can only communicate with the use of his GOP talking points... he can read... which is why he has his own show pitiful as it is.
Those who attempt to defend TORTURE defend the indefensable!
What TORTURE does do: produce false intellegence leading to massive waste of time and manpower; radicalize victims; act as a recruiting tool for extremist groups. What TORTURE doesn't do: protect America or anyone else. Who does TORTURE: sadistic sociopaths dedicated to fulfilling their sadistic desires. Who doesn't TORTURE: dedicated men and women working to protect America. Who insults and belittles truely dedicated men and women working to protect America by claiming that TORTURERS are that: AG Eric Holder at the US Department of Torture!
The truely sucky part of that torture defender Holders comment is that there actually ARE dedicated men and women protecting America! They are the ones who REFUSED to participate in TORTURE and who EXPOSED the crime of TORTURE!!! Eric Holder INSULTED and BELITTLED EVERY one of those dedicated individuals by claiming TORTURERS were in the same class!!!
Gregory is a total wishy washy idiot and Scar face is plain dumb spewing more habitual Reslug lies. The majority of Americans don't agree with Reslugs that waterboarding is fun, kids play, and necessary when it's proven to NOT work over and over. We only get more lies or fabrications to get the waterboarding to stop.
His Reslug sidekick Bimbo is always just staring, confused into space and never says anything? Another typical dumb reslug whore.
Why can't conservatives just talk the issues?
I'll probably disagree with them of course, but it flexes your brain when you get someone who talks sensibly.
I never much cared for William F. Buckley. He uses the old college trick of turning in a paper with poorly thought out ideas, but over-inflated with polysyllabic verbiage and garrulousness.
He even had a column practically accusing the Zero-population-growth people, and Pro-Choice of running essentially a genocide program against racial minorities.
But I used to like to read Col. Winters column in the Dallas Times Herald.
And if you read Edmund Burke's Reflections of the Revolution in France (1790), he was a freakin' poet. Although William Godwin's An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1791), and Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792), had views closer to my own, the former tended to be too pedantic, and the latter too much of an apologist.
Remember when Mika's daddy said to Scarborough, "You know, you have such a stunningly superficial knowledge of what went on that it's almost embarrassing to listen to you"?
Every time someone says we need to torture in order to avoid another 9/11, the response should be that conventional intelligence had already turned up all the information necessary to stop the original 9/11 attack. The reason it wasn't stopped was (a) that intelligence agencies were crippled by intramural and inter-agency petty turf guarding, and (b) that the president was too lazy and ignorant to heed the intelligence briefing warning of what was coming. Waterboarding would not have affected either problem in any way.
Why doesn't anyone on these shows ever say that? And why doesn't Mika quote her daddy?
Mika's dad had it right and nailed Scarborough for what he really is. He sits and sucks on his latte and spouts old party lines over and over again and doesn't try to listen to anyone who knows what they are talking about. Mika needs to grow a pair or leave the show. Replace her with someone like David Schuster who knows what he's talking about.
a far graver offense than just being "superficial" IMHO.
was Mika's response to Joe's lie about DC and LA being nuked.
Scarborough just flat out lied about the effectiveness of waterboarding. He lied when he said that it led to the arrest of KSM. He lied when he said it gutted AQ. But this propagandist liar knows better than the actual interrogators, who have contradicted this lie over and over again.
I think a lot of folks miss this important point. People who support torture are less looking for information than they are looking to punish and cause pain to arabic people, regardless of their specific country of origin or responsibility for the attacks on 9-11. That is the true intent...to inflict pain on them as we perceive "they" did on the USA.
It is crazy of course. We tend to lump all mideasterners together and care little whether a given individual actually was part of the pain we felt. It is about revenge and inflicting pain and degregation on anyone who even looks like someone who might have or want to hurt the USA. Sunni, Shia, Arab, Persian, Kurd, etc., when we torture we could care less. Those who support torture get off on revenge and inflicting pain and consider it righteous retribution.
I reminds me a lot of the MSNBC obsession with life in prison lockup. Much of the audience is getting off on the reported punishment and degradation of those who break the law. Beatings, rapes, inmate and guard brutality just get many viewers "off." Otherwise these shows would result in prison reform to improve inmate safety, subjects that are just plain politically unpopular.
What does Scarborough think about that? She was convicted of spying. Is it OK for her to be waterboarded? How about kept awake for 180 hours or slammed against a wall 30 times?
Not when Americans do it to other people.
This is the double standard our nation was founded upon, and I don't think we intend on changing that any time soon. We're literally the masters of saying one thing and doing the other.
sad but true!
This is all very hypothetical... sitemonitors.
What if some organization released a video of a captive American being waterboarded? What would it be called then? A frat boy prank? Would we move along?
America has never used "journalists" to spy before? It has, in fact, happened, in the past, and perhaps now...America is at war with Iran ya know....Calling for economic sanctions and other embargoes are declarations of war by international law standards.
No. You're wrong. If you can produce some evidence of the US declaring war on Iran, please produce it.
Conversely, if you want to use "international law standards" then Shrub, Cheney, Addington, Yoo, and all the rest of the cabal should be hung.
Can't have it both ways
When I say that, I don't mean you personally, Lefty, I am referring to our government.
From Parisa on October 24, 2008, the article entitled “Secret War on Iran: Is the US already at war with Iran?” The article concisely put said that:
“In "America's Secret War", Vanguard correspondent Mariana van Zeller travels to the Iraq-Iran border to investigate claims that the United States is supporting militant groups that are attacking Iran. In the rugged Qandil mountains, she meets with up with anti-Iranian guerillas who have been launching deadly raids against the Islamic Republic. A good percentage of the fighters are women, and Mariana accompanies a small group of them through what many believe has become the frontline of the US's secret war with Iran."
Find this article at: http://www.iranian.com/main/singlepage/2008/s...
From Seymour Hersh’s New Yorker article, dated January 24, 2005, entitled, “The Coming Wars: What the Pentagon can now do in secret,” reports that the Bush administration was actually:
“conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran at least since last summer. Much of the focus is on the accumulation of intelligence and targeting information on Iranian nuclear, chemical, and missile sites, both declared and suspected. The goal is to identify and isolate three dozen, and perhaps more, such targets that could be destroyed by precision strikes and short-term commando raids. “The civilians in the Pentagon want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible,” the government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon told me….Some of the missions involve extraordinary coöperation. For example, the former high-level intelligence official told me that an American commando task force has been set up in South Asia and is now working closely with a group of Pakistani scientists and technicians who had dealt with Iranian counterparts. (In 2003, the I.A.E.A. disclosed that Iran had been secretly receiving nuclear technology from Pakistan for more than a decade, and had withheld that information from inspectors.) The American task force, aided by the information from Pakistan, has been penetrating eastern Iran from Afghanistan in a hunt for underground installations. The task-force members, or their locally recruited agents, secreted remote detection devices—known as sniffers—capable of sampling the atmosphere for radioactive emissions and other evidence of nuclear-enrichment programs….Getting such evidence is a pressing concern for the Bush Administration. The former high-level intelligence official told me, “They don’t want to make any W.M.D. intelligence mistakes, as in Iraq. The Republicans can’t have two of those. There’s no education in the second kick of a mule.” The official added that the government of Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani President, has won a high price for its coöperation—American assurance that Pakistan will not have to hand over A. Q. Khan, known as the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, to the I.A.E.A. or to any other international authorities for questioning. For two decades, Khan has been linked to a vast consortium of nuclear-black-market activities. Last year, Musharraf professed to be shocked when Khan, in the face of overwhelming evidence, “confessed” to his activities. A few days later, Musharraf pardoned him, and so far he has refused to allow the I.A.E.A. or American intelligence to interview him. Khan is now said to be living under house arrest in a villa in Islamabad. “It’s a deal—a trade-off,” the former high-level intelligence official explained. “ ‘Tell us what you know about Iran and we will let your A. Q. Khan guys go.’ It’s the neoconservatives’ version of short-term gain at long-term cost. They want to prove that Bush is the anti-terrorism guy who can handle Iran and the nuclear threat, against the long-term goal of eliminating the black market for nuclear proliferation.”
“The immediate goals of the attacks would be to destroy, or at least temporarily derail, Iran’s ability to go nuclear. But there are other, equally purposeful, motives at work. The government consultant told me that the hawks in the Pentagon, in private discussions, have been urging a limited attack on Iran because they believe it could lead to a toppling of the religious leadership. “Within the soul of Iran there is a struggle between secular nationalists and reformers, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the fundamentalist Islamic movement,” the consultant told me. “The minute the aura of invincibility which the mullahs enjoy is shattered, and with it the ability to hoodwink the West, the Iranian regime will collapse” —like the former Communist regimes in Romania, East Germany, and the Soviet Union. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz share that belief, he said.”
Read Hersh’s entire article at:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/01/24/0...
I understand what you're saying. My original point (not articulated very well I guess) is that our government and people like Pig-Eyed Joe conveniently define reality in dishonest, inconsistent and hypocritical terms and no one ever questions the definition once they establish it.
There, that's what I should have posted to be more clear.
Thanks again for the link.
As Stephen Lendman wrote on August 18, 2008 at Global Research.com, in an article entitled: "Blockades: Acts of War," that the U.S. needs to uphold the laws against sanctions/blockades which are against international and U.S. laws. In part, Lendman points out the following:
"Under international and US law, blockades are acts of war and variously defined as:
-- surrounding a nation or objective with hostile forces;
-- measures to isolate an enemy;
-- encirclement and besieging;
-- preventing the passage in or out of supplies, military forces or aid in time of or as an act of war; and
-- an act of naval warfare to block access to an enemy's coastline and deny entry to all vessels and aircraft."
"In 2009, it's believed that the International Criminal Court in the Hague will include blockades against coasts and ports as acts of war....International law expert Professor Francis Boyle is very outspoken on this topic as well as on others of equal importance. He defines blockades under international and US law as:
-- "belligerent measures taken by a nation (to) prevent passage of vessels or aircraft to and from another country. Customary international law recognizes blockades as an act of war because of the belligerent use of force even against third party nations in enforcing the blockade. Blockades as acts of war have been recognized as such in the Declaration of Paris of 1856 and the Declaration of London of 1909 that delineate the international rules of warfare."
"America approved these Declarations, so they're binding US law as well "as part of general international law and customary international law." Past US presidents, including Dwight Eisenhower and Jack Kennedy, called blockades acts of war. So has the US Supreme Court...All treaties to which America is a signatory, including the UN Charter, are binding US law. Its Chapter VII authorizes only the Security Council to "determine the existence of any threat to the peace, or act of aggression (and, if necessary, take military or other actions to) restore international peace and stability." It permits a nation to use force (including blockades) only under two conditions: when authorized by the Security Council or under Article 51 allowing the "right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member....until the Security Council has taken measures to maintain international peace and security."
"Iran poses no threat to the US, its neighbors, or any other nations, including Israel. Imposing a blockade against it violates the UN Charter and other international and US law. It will constitute an illegal act of aggression that under the Nuremberg Charter is the "supreme international crime" above all others. It will make the Bush administration, every supportive congressional member, and governments of other participating nations criminally liable...."
Read the entire article at:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?contex...
As John McGlynn wrote on March 24, 2008 at the Global Research site with the article entitled: “Day of Infamy: The March 20, 2008 US Declaration of War on Iran,” that:
“…March 20, 2008, destined to be another day of infamy. On this date the US officially declared war on Iran. But it's not going to be the kind of war many have been expecting….No, there was no dramatic televised announcement by President George W. Bush from the White House oval office. In fact on this day, reports the Washington Post, Bush spent some time communicating directly with Iranians, telling them via Radio Farda (the US-financed broadcaster that transmits to Iran in Farsi, Iran's native language) that their government has "declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people." But not to worry, he told his listeners in Farsi-translated Bushspeak: Tehran would not get the bomb because the US would be "firm." Over at the US Congress, no war resolution was passed, no debate transpired, no last-minute hearing on the Iran "threat" was held. The Pentagon did not put its forces on red alert and cancel all leave. The top story on the Pentagon's website (on March 20) was: "Bush Lauds Military's Performance in Terror War," a feel-good piece about the president's appearance on the US military's TV channel to praise "the performance and courage of U.S. troops engaged in the global war on terrorism." Bush discussed Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa but not Iran….But make no mistake. As of Thursday, March 20 the US is at war with Iran….”
“…So who made it official? A unit within the US Treasury Department, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), which issued a March 20 advisory to the world's financial institutions under the title: "Guidance to Financial Institutions on the Continuing Money Laundering Threat Involving Illicit Iranian Activity." FinCEN, though part of the chain of command, is better known to bankers and lawyers than to students of US foreign policy. Nevertheless, when the history of this newly declared war is someday written (assuming the war is allowed to proceed) FinCEN's role will be as important as that played by US Central Command (Centcom) in directing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq….In its March 20 advisory FinCEN reminds the global banking community that United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSC) 1803 (passed on March 3, 2008) "calls on member states to exercise vigilance over the activities of financial institutions in their territories with all banks domiciled in Iran, and their branches and subsidiaries abroad."
“…UNSC 1803 specifically mentions two Iranian state-owned banks: Bank Melli and Bank Saderat. These two banks (plus their overseas branches and certain subsidiaries), along with a third state-owned bank, Bank Sepah, were also unilaterally sanctioned by the US in 2007 under anti-proliferation and anti-terrorism presidential executive orders 13382 and 13224….As of March 20, however, the US, speaking through FinCEN, is now telling all banks around the world "to take into account the risk arising from the deficiencies in Iran's AML/CFT [anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism] regime, as well as all applicable U.S. and international sanctions programs, with regard to any possible transactions" with – and this is important – not just the above three banks but every remaining state-owned, private and special government bank in Iran. In other words, FinCEN charges, all of Iran's banks – including the central bank (also on FinCEN's list) – represent a risk to the international financial system, no exceptions. Confirmation is possible by comparing FinCEN's list of risky Iranian banks with the listing of Iranian banks provided by Iran's central bank...The "deficiencies in Iran's AML/CFT" is important because it provides the rationale FinCEN will now use to deliver the ultimate death blow to Iran's ability to participate in the international banking system. The language is borrowed from Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a group of 32 countries and two territories set up by the G-7 in 1989 to fight money laundering and terrorist financing. As the FinCEN advisory describes, in October 2007 the FATF stated "that Iran's lack of a comprehensive anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regime represents a significant vulnerability in the international financial system. In response to the FATF statement, Iran passed its first AML law in February 2008. The FATF, however, reiterated its concern about continuing deficiencies in Iran's AML/CFT system in a statement on February 28, 2008."”
“….Actually, the February 28 FATF statement does not comment on Iran's new anti-money laundering law. The statement does say, however, that the FATF has been working with Iran since the October 2007 FATF statement was issued and "welcomes the commitment made by Iran to improve its AML/CFT regime." Moreover, the February 28 statement, for whatever reason, drops the "significant vulnerability" wording, opting instead to reaffirm that financial authorities around the world should "advise" their domestic banks to exercise "enhanced due diligence" concerning Iran's AML/CFT "deficiencies." In linking its March 20 advisory to the recent FATF statements, apparently FinCEN cannot wait for FATF or anyone else to evaluate the effectiveness of Iran's brand new anti-financial crime laws….Anyway, the "deficiencies in Iran's AML/CFT" is probably the main wording FinCEN will use to justify application of one its most powerful sanctions tools, a USA Patriot Act Section 311 designation (see below). Hammering away at Iran's state-owned banks is central to US efforts to raise an international hue and cry. Through its state-owned banks, FinCEN states, "the Government of Iran disguises its involvement in proliferation and terrorism activities through an array of deceptive practices specifically designed to evade detection." By managing to get inserted the names of two state-owned banks in the most recent UN Security Council resolution on Iran, the US can now portray the cream of Iran's financial establishment (Bank Melli and Bank Saderat are Iran's two largest banks) as directly integrated into alleged regime involvement in a secret nuclear weaponization program and acts of terrorism….”
Read the entire story at: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?contex...
...very, very effective". Where does he get off saying this kind of crap and no one there calls him on it?! How anyone can spend a morning watching and listening to this bloated baffoon is truly beyond me. So let me get this straight, Joe, we can either have our cities leveled by terrorists or we can torture people - those are our only two options? Really Joe? Really?! I'm not sure what disgusts me more - the fact that this idiot is defending, no, PROMOTING war crimes on television, or that a fair number of his viewers are buying it.
Why do MSM journalists continue to allow the wingnuts to pretend that we live in that fictioonal world peopled by super-agents who foil plots while the clock ticks down to one second before armageddon?
Why didn't Gregory say, "Joe - you're either a fool or a liar. Jack Bauer is just a Dick Cheney wet dream. He's fiction. 24 is fiction. Not even good fiction which requires the suspension of belief. Good intel does not come from hanging a small venomous looking latterday VC out of a helicopter hovering over a pool of sharks. It's just a made up thing - and not a very good one at that."
My question was rhetorical.
Gregory (and the rest of them) don't put an end to the dissemination of right wing idiocy because they fear tantrums like that of Michael Steele and DHS agents taking names at a pro-life rally. They think their pool of conservative bobbleheads will dry up. That they'll never again get another automatic boost during ratings week by signing Ann Coulter to flash thigh and spew hatred on their stage.
Let's waterboard Scarborough and see just how much of a conservative he really is.
As far as I know, all the warnings of the 9/11 attack that were ignored by the Bush administration were obtained without torture. What does mornin' Joe say about that?
These wingnuts have no interest in facts, they just want to brainwash everyone else into believing the propaganda.
They have nothing of substance to offer.
Personally, I'm bombarding MSNBC with e-mails questioning them on how they can allow someone on their shows blatantly lie day after day the way Pig-Eyed Joe does.
the cognitive shortcuts of idea creation are the highways of the modern conservative movement.
torturing people saved a city, Joe's argument would be great. First, I would doubt very seriously if the pack of criminals that ran this country for 8 years would have sat on a triumph such as that. They would have been shouting from the rooftops had they foiled a real honest to God plan. It would have led the news for weeks on end. So, Joe, buddy, get a grip. Your argument for torture doesn't work on suppostions. The torture was real.
it seems like joe would like america to have a poll to help him make up his mind. he definetly seems to be for it but not explicitly and the whole debate is a way for him to say i like torture, maybe, i just need to find out on the most superficial of levels what everyone else thinks.
he'd probably change religions if his groups numbers were losing in the ratings.
How American would it be to take a child of a "suspected" bad guy and start carving this child up with a kniife in front of this suspect (childs father) to make the suspect talk. Not knowing if he is guilty or has information?
Should Water boarding or other forms of interrogation be used on criminal suspects in the banking industry or are they somehow less of a threat to America by intentionally collapsing our economy?
Should the American people be allowed to torture the truth out of media heads that foul the truth of information the American people should be provided?
Can we torture say Limbaugh to admit his guilt of drug abuse?
Torture the truth out of Norm Coleman over the fact that he knows he lost the election and merely allows his situation to to be used by the Republican party to deny Minn its rightful elected Senator?
What information might America gain if Alberto Conzales was W-boarded for info?
Would John Yoo confess under torture to falsely writing the President can torture and when he orders it , that it is not illegal?
... defending torture. Real classy. I assume most of these jokers like Joe prefer tea bags to getting waterboarded.
Maybe they are just watching a little too much "24" to think that this actually works when most research says otherwise.
The Scar on weekday mornings... OR Gregory on Sunday. they are both pompous gas bags that have absolutely NOTHING to offer to a national dialog.
I am deeply gratified that more than just a few OF YOU must feel the same way I do (as is obvious by the contributions above.)
THANK YOU, ALL for helping to expose the COMPLETE BULLSHIT that is MORNING JOE.
This show is worthless and similar to the non-sense on FAUX at the same time slot. I refuse to watch this right wing idiot, Scarborough who cannot allow one day go by without reliving his glory days with Newt Gingrich impeaching Bill Clinton or having Pat Buchanan relive his glory days in the Nixon Whitehouse. They are biased, closed minded, idiots and Mika has gone right along with them. Joe Scarborough should have been cancelled when they gave him this show. I never watch these idiots. I will leave it on when Joe is off for some reason.
because they knew that americans did not torture
well, that isnt true now
and should the conflict in afghanistan expand, or should we find ourselves in a fight anywhere else...think the opposing combatants will surrender than fight to the death? hell no
torture put our men and women in uniform at risk
so why does joe hate our troops?
Bush Sr., see clip from 0:25, "We're not going to harm you. We're American soldiers." As he weeps. (Desert Storm stuff.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PryYdwMq0Z8&fe...
While I'm no fan of any Bush, he seems to at least remember America once stood for something.
I actually heard Gregory to say that the media did in fact ask the Bush administration the tough questions, in the run-up to the iraq War. He's a bold face liar. Scarborough is right-wing scumbag, who as an occasional moment of lucidity. Like when he recently suggested the Norm Coleman should quit the bs in Minnesota.
if these fucking miscreants want a to debate
if waterboarding is torture, then they should
be made to experience this disgusting technique
for an extended session of unknown length and
then they can debate whether waterboarding is
torture. personal experience is all it will take.
Rush Blimp is now saying that torture works because the North Vietnamese broke John McCain. (You can see the news at HuffPo.)
The Republicans are so shattered-to-pieces. I love it. More in-fighting please.
Just what cities would have burned if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was not waterboarded? Probably none.
Prior to 9/11, Moussaui was in custody and agents were aware of suspicions about some people attending flight schools. Whatever plots Khalid was working on, would likely have been detected by other means.
Thanks Joe Scarborough for Reminding us how far we have come in Eight
Years that we would have to Publicly Debate if WaterBoarding is actually Torture.It is really nice to hear that Dick Cheney is
getting his two cent's in Via Joe Scarborough.
you're small, you're petty, and you're smug scarborough. fuck you!
I'm often dumbfounded by the level of stupidity from- The Screaming Morning Show..Hey Joe Scarborough try reading the source material next time, moron
You have no idea what you are talking about.
The U.N. Convention Against Torture puts it this way: "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification for torture."
Promote the human rights of everyone....
Now it is time to raise our voice and say an unequivocal NO to torture, a practice that has no place in our society and violates our most cherished moral convictions.
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