Lawrence O'Donnell Rips Into Torture Apologist David Rivkin
Lawrence O'Donnell filling in for Ed Schultz rips into torture apologist David Rivkin. Rivkin has to be one of the most infuriating pundits out there and O'Donnell does a good job of taking on his talking points. That said I think O'Donnell would have better luck getting through to the wall behind him than he's ever going to have with the likes of Rivkin. The Republicans trot this guy out every time they need someone to defend the indefensible at Congressional hearings such as this one: Sheldon Whitehouse Destroys David Rivkin’s “Gallery of Horribles” Marcy wrote about from back in March.
John Amato:
Rivkin actually has the nerve to use the SERE program as a defense. The one that the odious Liz Cheney tried to use on Norah O'Donnell and which failed miserably.
This idiot uses the fact that since we tortured our own people using this program it's OK to torture detainees.
Rivkin: Deliberate infliction of severe physical and mental pain and suffering.
O'Donnell: Did you not here that description severe physical and mental pain and suffering?
Rivkin: That is a subjective view.
O'Donnell: Pain is subjective
Rivkin: Look, under your logic everything is torture.
O'Donnell: Everything is not torture, not at all. You're the defender of torture.
republicanism is a mental illness!
republican = insanity!
I like O'Donnell's no-nonsense come-out-swinging approach and he's usually pretty sharp but he tends to lack the knockout punch. Ed Schultz can be like that too. I like their aggressiveness but I prefer David Shuster's ability to get'em in the rhetorical choke hold and let them either tap out or pass out. Unfortunately, MSNBC seems to prefer a screaming match to a chess match; I'd rather see a checkmate myself. Even if they think they need the drama and cacophony for ratings, it'd be nice if these guys learned to incorporate the finishing moves into the sturm und drang - every time I see an exchange like this, there's always that moment where in the back of head I hear that little voice going "Finish him..."
Ya! those guys are great. if the others want ratings all they have to do is quietly and slowly ask the right questions. The crooks would start going to jail.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
The missing piece in Lawrence's argument is that the willing, knowing participation of SERE candidates renders the definition of what was done to them training. Their personal commitment to be tortured in defense of the nation they serve, to learn to resist torture methods in preparation for being tortured by an enemy in the line of duty in fact reinforces, validates the point that these methods are, in fact, torture.
Rivkin is a vile, knowing liar. It's really beside the point that he has had no military training.
Ed is a cheap Limbaugh imitation. I used to listen to his radio show. He's very shallow and not well-versed on most subjects. O'Donnell just needs to temper his emotions a bit. He tends to fly off the handle sometimes.
... the moment Rivkin made the SERE claim to justify torture and the claim that torture provided actionable intel to the CIA, I'd have said, "On which basis - waterboarding session #73?!? Session #26?!? Session #129?!? Do you have any incontrovertible evidence whatsoever that SERE were waterboarded 6 times a day for 31 days straight?!?" and after he answered those questions (which he wouldn't have -- he just would've engaged in more spin, talking points, etc.), and I'd have said, "Mr. Rivkin, I've got police and former military in my family who had to crack some pretty tough shells and none of them had to resort to tactics typical of an episode of 'The Shield", so are you daring to argue that torture is okay because Det. Vic Mackey and the Strike Team said so for 7 Emmy Award winning seasons?!? Is that what you and the rest of the pro-torture crowd trying to justify to American tax-payers -- that police, judges, lawyers, CIA operatives, military personnel and politicians including a former Vice President of the United States are to be given a license to be SOCIOPATHS on the same level as the fictional Vic Mackeys, Shane Vandrells, and Jack Bauers?!?"
how do these people get to be so stupid!
n/c
Left is right. Socialist is fascist. Up is down, inside is out.
And reality is whatever bullshit these morons pull out of their ass with their vocal chords, in order to justify their latest deranged behavior.
Any questions? Our quiz on GOP logic 101, will be the day after yesterday.
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
David Rivkin, is he like Dick Cheney's protege in the ways of the soulless monster?
The David Rivkins of this world scare the hell out of me.
O'Donnell's smackdown of this creep was a joy to behold!
it was only training.
no one got hurt.
all i can do is shake my head in utter disbelief .
where do they find these people?
What is your conceptual, continuity?
Likening training to real torture is like saying Christopher Walken learned what it's like to play Russian Roulette in "The Deer Hunter" - while he might understand the emotion, it's really not the same game when the gun's not really loaded...
...the people in SERE know it is training and that it WILL end and the people 'training them' are trying to be careful to not harm them. Also, the duration is much shorter and that makes a big difference in long term effects on people.
...a cowardly sack of puerile excrement. Typical of the breed.
GOP 2009: beyond hypocrisy, beneath contempt.
but they sure as hell wouldn't want it to happen to them
that David Rivkin is devoid of any characteristics that we normally ascribe to being "human".
CONVINCING THE DUMBED-DOWN THAT WATERBOARDING IS ILLEGAL IS LIKE TRYING TO TEACH A LATTER DAY REPUBLICAN ABOUT EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY OR ECOLOGY
http://lawreview.wustl.edu/slip-opinions/wate...
1. Torture Act
2. War Crimes Act
3. Prohibition on Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of Persons Under Custody or Control of the United States Government
4. Additional Prohibition on Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment of Punishment
"The United States has enacted statutes prohibiting torture and cruel or inhuman treatment. It is these statutes which make waterboarding illegal. The four principal statutes which Congress has adopted to implement the provisions of the foregoing treaties are the Torture Act, the War Crimes Act,and the laws entitled "Prohibition on Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of Persons Under Custody or Control of the United States Government" and "Additional Prohibition on Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment." The first two statutes are criminal laws while the latter two statutes extend civil rights to any person in the custody of the United States anywhere in the world."
Thank you.
Thanks, osage. I'll file that one for later. You may also this Evan Wallach law article on the same subject interesting, or the Keith Olbermann piece drawing from it at the same post.
David Rifkin? Just curious because they sound an awful like each other.
Had he served, he'd realise if we torture the enemy in wartime, it INVITES them to torture captured US troops....
But then again, mabey Republicans are aware of this but simply don't care...
They actually need torture to rule because they are bad guys, and they're counting on nobody else caring if they only torture mysterious enemies for the moment.
Later on torture will become routine to squelch the dissent of the people against brutality of all kinds.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
That's why they showed the movie "Valley of the wolves" exclusively to moslems to get them riled up for war (i.e.bring it on) especially Gary Bussy's part in the movie.
Possibly where Cheney got a new heart to replace his rotten one
...is that enemies will not surrender if they think they will be tortured. They will fight harder and longer. In many of these countries the armies are either conscripts or just in it for the money. They will give up easier if they know they will be treated well and every fight that doesn't happen is less american deaths.
That guy has some of the most souless, reptiloid eyes I've ever seen in an alleged human being. That is one creepy dude.
Olbermann - If A Democrat Is Culpable In Torture Then They Can Go To Hell Too!
oops .. not intended as a reply but as a comment .. but I'll leave it here nonetheless ..
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
Hello!1!1! Anybody there??
Ask someone who uses the fact that Americans have gone through the SERE school as a defense against torture this question: What does the SERE school subject American military personal to in order to prepare them?
Also do you think detainees received the same care as our military personnel or do you think they knew it was just 'training'?
I have been to two different SERE schools while in the Marine Corps. They teach you survival and evasion techniques then let you run loose for a couple of days while they try to capture you. If they don't capture you then you have to turn yourself in. After a couple of days you are pretty hungry and tired. Then they put you in cages, spray cold water on you in the middle of the night, bounce you off walls and slap you around a little. One or two people are water-boarded but not everyone and it is extremely brief not that it takes long to prove the point. The people who go to these schools are those who would be considered high value prisoners with valuable information. So pilots, intelligence personnel and special unit type personnel. My second class was all Navy SEALs and i was the only Marine. The special unit types among us were used to this kind of deprivation, being tired and hungry and the physical abuse was minor. Nobody can take waterboarding though and I mean nobody.
They are trying to say these guys did not have it any worse than those of us who went to SERE schools which is absolute bullshit. If you even believe their reports, and I don't, they were waterboarded hundreds of times. This is sadistic and pointless from a military intelligence point of view. We know plenty of other things happened to them from the published reports that don't happen in SERE school.
Most importantly and I cannot stress this enough..they are lying through their teeth about how much abuse went on, who was abused and how many times. People were tortured to the point that some were killed. We know this but are supposed to believe it did not stem from top down. Anyone who has been in the military knows this is not how things work. People all over the world in the various holding facilities did not spontaneously decide all at the same time to torture prisoners.
Last but not least it is always the chickenhawks who defend what they think is tough guy behavior even though they would piss their pants if anyone looked at them sideways. They are sad scared little men and the biggest chickenhawk coward of all is Dick Cheney. He and Bush need to go to jail along with ll their enablers. I despise these people and so do many other s in the military, far more than people realize.
Ditto. Big ditto.
I have to add, the one difference they keep overlooking when comparing SERE school and this program is the willingness of the participant.
True. And we might also look at the number of accidental deaths which happen as a result of this SERE training, vs. the number of so-called accidental deaths of suspected terrorists. I recently saw numbers of deaths of detainees, and it was rather shocking. And while it didn't say that they all died of waterboarding, it sure seems possible or even likely that some of them were.
Rivkin tried to suggest that the training given to willing participants in the SERE program was of a more severe type. Or, put another way, we waterboard suspected terrorists less severely than we do our own troops during SERE training. Who the hell believes that crock of sh!t? Again -- how many of our own trainees in SERE have died from this? And how many suspected terrorists have died from it? I want numbers, not this Israeli spin meister's convoluted facts.
for your military service to Americans and for your honest words.
You have the support of many people on this planet. Peace to us all.
I think the reason they believe torture works, is because they know it would work on THEM. These chickenhawks like Rivkin are sadistic voyeurs by nature. And it's about time we call a spade a spade.
Rivkin is a Zionist, and I doubt very much whether his loyalties are completely with the USA. He wants to expand this crusade against Muslims, and would like nothing more than for the USA to go to war with Iran.
This is the same group of warmongers who called for Iraq to be invaded, on trumped up intelligence. Funny when the death list of American soldiers have been made available throughout the years I have never seen one Jewish soldiers name on that list. No Kristols, Podhoretzs or Rivkins....why aren't they sending their sons and daughters to fight in these wars they are pushing the US to engage.
Irvin Kristol, Bills father, said recently.."I want the US to bomb Iran so that the US will be hated in the world as much as Israel is." What an American patriot!
don smith
Thanks, snookie. Your experience squares with everything else I've read/heard. SERE training is not the same as torture, obviously. And you're definitely right that many in the military despise them for this crap.
Stop it right in its tracks. Dont give a damn if its effective. It's Torture.
Christ, that was like having a flashback to the Bush years. I am so sick of the way they mangle language and logic to get some weird, pseudo argument based on semantics... then just shout it over and over.
limited resources and in the past, it served as a morality lesson and ended with a pretty rainbow. Genocide is acceptable as a child friendly historical event and even daycare facilities name themselves "Noah's Ark" and Fisher Price sells plastic replicas honoring the event.
Torture is simply what happens to people who don't worship the Lord, and it will happen for ever and ever. If the US is a nation based on a strong religious foundation and belief in the Bible, how can doing just a little of God's works be a bad thing?
Perhaps those arguing for justice for torturers are atheists and traitors?
I love this guy! David Rivkin doesn't understand what we did was torture, even when it was shoved in his face.
Rivkin undoubtedly believes that it is only torture when it is done to the 'good guys'. When the king of Spain did it to his fellow Jews back in the late 1400's, surely it was torture. When the Japanese did it to our own troops in WW2, surely it was torture. But when we do it to our enemies, the so-called bad guys, then it is, by definition, not torture. In other words, it's not really the method, but the target of the method, which makes the difference.
"..makes the difference." WOW...wish you could get that on the air.
Excellent point!
Rivkin has spent a bit too much time in Israel where such atrocities have been rationalized for far too long.
What irks me the most is that this procedure -- waterboarding -- was actually used against Jews initially by the king of Spain back in the 1490s. They were forced to leave Spain, or convert to Christianity -- and they waterboarded those Jews who they suspected as having falsely converted.
And we prosecuted Japanese soldiers after WWII for waterboarding our troops.
So what are we to conclude from this? It's torture when done against Israelis and Americans, but not torture when done to everyone else? What kind of hypocrisy is that?
Rivkin and the rest of the straight faced lying jackasses who defend torture should be tortured , then asked their opinion . Better yet give them over to the Taliban . Round them up , give them parachutes , put em on transport planes and drop them over the Swat valley . Freaks without conscience or souls , they are not fit to be in or amongst civilized society .
Rivkin keeps calling Lawrence ED....somebody didn't get the memo
I commend O'Donnell for not reaching through the "toobz" to strangle that fool!
Gotta go wash my eyes out with soap, or something...
When Clinton went through the first step of impeachment, it was based on "rule of law." This is their greatest hypocritical weakness. The fact is, there is no legal defense to torture. There are no affirmative defenses or justifications that are acknowledged by a court of law. We now know that torture occurred. We just don't have definitive proof showing every player involved. Every sucker that has been trotted out in the media to apologize for torture has completely ignored the law, specifically because they know they can play on emotion and distract people. For the reason alone, I recommend all of you read 18 USC 2340 et seq. in full. It is a very short statute. It shows that there are no reasons to indulge emotional distractions. Even if everyone had the best intentions, and in a magic fantasy that became reality, could be 100% sure that a prisoner was withholding information that could prevent a "24" doomsday scenario, torture is still illegal. It makes every distraction brought up irrelevant and not worth addressing. Once it is addressed, you've lost to a degree, as it lends a BS argument a bit of credence. The federal statute I mention is accessable in whole here: http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sup...
There is no justification. Short circuit every distraction from the start through bringing up our federal law.
I concur.
Would a special prosecutor be a good start?
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
now let's keep our foot on their throats. We've cornered the Rethuglicans into defending torture, defending hate crimes and allowing the two most unpopular Republicans, Limpbaugh & Cheney, to be the spokesmen for their party.
I am gladdened by the liberals' new penchant for being more aggressive and confrontational. You get no points for being "nice"; the right doesn't give you credit for it, and actually may lose respect for you being "soft". Schuster is best at it, Big Ed is pretty good, and it looks like O'Donnel can hold his own. They won't even APPEAR on Olbermann.
We've got to keep calling them on their BS.
Moral-less bastards keep repeating torture works while providing no facts. Love O'Donnell. He gets right in these sick fucks face exposing them as weak and black hearted.
The huge difference between SERE trainees and the poor bastards being tortured is that SERE people were given a ball, and when they could take no more they dropped the ball and the procedure would be stopped.
Ever had an MRI? Just imagine that they wouldn't stop regardless of what you did. I had a lovely time in an ER when they would NOT give me any narcotics after I dislocated my shoulder and before they x-rayed it. I would have given anyone who cared to know my debit card number, or whatever. When I had the MRI later, they stopped when I screamed.
Look at the cold dead eyes.
The torture party will not go quietly into the night.
They are begging to be put in prison.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Video on this post: http://www.salon.com/opinion/walsh/politics/2...
Rivkin's game here is to pretend, once again, that SERE training is the same as torture. He's claimed the same thing to the face of Malcolm Nance, Charles Swift and Matthew Alexander, all military or ex-military, and all who have undergone SERE training. Rivkin normally claims that waterboarding is not torture, but occasionally he's acknowledged that it is. He's one of the most slippery torture apologists there is, and utterly despicable. He's basically playing defense attorney for the Bushies, pretending they didn't torture anyone and trying every piece of BS he can to muddy the waters. His goal right now is to confuse the public as much as he can to avoid a trial.
(I wrote a post on Rivkin and his shifting torture arguments back in March that Mike's Blog Roundup kindly linked, if you really want to get into debunking and dissecting all of his BS, but I'll warn ya it's a long sucker.)
Sheldon Whitehouse was fantastic in dealing with Rivkin, and emptywheel's post on it was great, too - as are all of her posts on torture and the timeline. Thanks for posting this one, Heather - it can be hard to keep tabs on Rivkin and all the other torture apologists.
To determine the thresholds of human endurance, the Germans conducted all sorts of experiments on prisoners. They used to put Jews, Eastern Europeans, and Russians ("sub-humans", in the Nazi mind) into freezing water, and then take them out and revive them. They continually increased the exposure to the freezing water by small increments, until they ultimately died. They kept detailed records of this 'research', and the allies found it. Yup, war crimes. (CIA most likely has these records. They were not destroyed. This freezing water 'test' is only one of the German's experiments.)
I guess, THIS GUY, might say, it wasn't really torture until these poor souls actually died. I imagine the CIA knows exactly how far they can go, before causing death too. But, read the above, and say it's not torture.
PS I worry Muslims have been reduced to this "sub-human" status in many an American mind.
"If the US government enforced its banking laws like it did its park regulations, we wouldn't be
in this damn park in the first place." OCCUPY.!!
Actually, just before ripping this bozo apart, O'Donnell had just utterly dismembered Frank Gaffney. Gaffney was left at times speechless and looked absolutely stupid as he tried to defend waterboarding. O'Donnell knows how to play "Hardball". Take some lessons, Chris Matthews. He may deserve a show more than either Ed Schultz or Chris Matthews.
Right wingers are so twisted it's beyond belief. In the first place, there's a huge difference between participating in something that's voluntary and being held captive against your will. There's also a huge difference knowing that the guys inflicting the pain are on your side, and that you can withdraw if you so choose. The idea that what was done in the SERES program somehow negates the illegality of torture is ludicrous.
From Goldberg to Rivkin every Zionist man I have ever seen interviewed all approve Muslims being tortured. This is not F**king Israel!!!!!
Waterboarding is the tip of the iceberg...when the Bush/Cheney/Wolfowitz gang started getting heat about torturing Iraqis...You know the same people we were "liberating"...they then began to farm out torture to Egypt and other foreign countries who have no enforceable laws against torturing suspects.
Of course this does not absolve Bush and his gang, because they only handed over Iraqis to be tortured,let the truth come out about what happened to those prisoners and it will make waterboarding look like a day in the park.
don smith
Rivkin looks like the type of person one would see hanging out around a childs playground with a pair binoculars, or the towelsman in a all mens steambath and massage house.
The only thing these assholes have, and Rivkin is one of the assholiest of the assholes, is they think if they say "It is not torture" over and over and over somebody will believe them.
Why do all these pro torture guys all look like they'd be laid up for a week if they got so much as a paper cut???
If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're gonna get selfish, ignorant leaders.
George Carlin
...but it was one of the most frustrating segments I've ever watched.
THE marine who demolished rivkin's treacherous chicken hawking category error,did the bulk of my task-but i would like to pile on the disingenuous flak a tad.first of all just because the sere program exists,ie the king ordered it,and his ad visors approved it,does not make the program moral,let alone legal.there may well be solders still living who were injected with syphilis by army physicians,there are,for damned sure,folks alive now who were interred during ww11. consider the zimbrano experiments in guard-prisoner role ROLEPLAYING done at stanford in the 1970's with healthy student volunteers-the experiment had to be shut down early on because of the psychological damage being done to the "guards",as well as the "prisoners." the american psychological assoc outlawed any further experiments of this nature,no matter the potential knowledge to be gleaned by social psychologists.its also worth noting that gathering intel is not the primary goal of torturers anyway-but rather the cowing of occupied populations .
the other week,right on this site,we saw a video in which the late cia agent,ev hunt,let slip that its accepted practice-at least in the 1970's to assume that captured operatives will spill whatever they know in a day or so-making it necessary to change all the locks,anyway,counselor rivkin-
the real problem with these strutting,playacting,disconnected flaks like rivkin is-that for all their word-calisthenics,and tortured operational definitions,,they DON'T SEEM TO HAVE ANY DIRECT SYSTEMATIC KNOWLEDGE OF THE MATERIALS THEY ARE TRYING TO PROPAGANDIZE.they may have some sub textual agenda involving distrust of bourg democracy generally,and of ordinary people in the aggregate which renders them "useful idiots" for their supervisors down at the chicken hawk home office.so their effectiveness may be enhanced by their lack of real knowledge.dunno.however i do believe that the "rivkins of pundit-land" may well be discrediting the authoritarian model of disinformation-for a time when its really going to be needed to maintain social cohesion around issues more important than the absurdest position rivkin takes on waterboarding-ITS TORTURE,ITS ILLEGAL,CRIMINAL,ETC-PERIOD.
the experiment i described above was designed,carried out,and published by PHILLIP ZIMBARDO-ITS DESCRIBED IN HIS BOOK "THE LUCIFER EFFECT" ITS A RIVOTING WORK-IMMUNIZES YOU FROM "RIVLIN'S DISEASE."
I like how at about 3:40 Rivkin refers to Cheney as "the vice president." Erm...no. He's "the former vice president."
Rivkin is creepy scary. To argue that because we used these techniques on US servicemen during SERE training they can't be torture is absurd. That's like saying there is no difference between rough consensual sex and rape. In one case you have a safe word ("Stop!"), in the other case you are powerless and scared out of your friggin' mind!
Senator John Sidney McCain III made it legal!
It's NOT Torture; Bush said so!
Under John McCain's Military Commissions Act of 2003 retroactive to 9-11-2001 Bush is granted, by law, the ability to DEFINE TORTURE FOR MILITARY, CIA, FBI AND OTHERS.
Bush said Waterboarding and killing of prisoners is Legal and NOT TORTURE!
It's the President's Legal right under the MCA of 2003 to do as he pleases.
When you hear “when the President does it, that means that it’s not illegal” Remember it was John McCain and the Majority Republican Congress that gave George W Bush that Right.
Now, Congress isn't willing to Repeal the Military Commissions Act of 2003 because it covers their tails for supporting the Bush Torture Machine.
Donaldd
Torture is a slippery slope- next thing you know the police in this country (US) will torture anyone they arrest, from peaceful protesters to teens caught carrying a joint- they'll be taken into a back room and beaten...
Is this the future the Republicans want for America?
I believe it truly is. Authoritarian, gutless, cowards - the lot of them.Destroy everything they don't agree with or understand - I fart in their general direction...
Torture can be effective, it just depends what your objective is. If your objective is subjugation and terror, then yes, torture is effective, as any of history's despots will tell you. If your objective is intelligence gathering, then no, torture does not work.
Now, the idea that it provides useful information is of course a monstrous canard. Any sliver of actual information you might be lucky enough to get, if you can find it under the huge pile of apocryphal garbage that your torture produced, can be gotten far more easily via other methods, with the added bonus you wouldn't have all the aforementioned garbage to sift through to find it.
In fact, the above counter-argument is moot anyway, along with the original argument, as there is nothing that backs up their supposition in the first place. Note: fiction doesn't count.
The defenders of torture are cruel and sadistic cowards, who use their positions to sow misery and suffering.
They KNOW they won't die, and they KNOW they won't be subjected to it over 182 times (after the first time)....
sheesh. Rivkin should be waterboarded, just like Hannity said he would do it....(when a well-known-hot-spot freezes over).....
and some think I'm thick-headed.
Trying to convince Americans to feel bad about our representatives treating terrorist suspects harshly, as O'Donnell does with cheek quivering passion, is the wrong approach.
Trying to convince Americans that treating terrorst suspects harshly is illegal, as the ACLU does with robotic efficiency, is the wrong approach.
There will be no groundswell of support for those arguments and no elections won for the righteous based on them in America.
The most effective argument against torture with the American people will be that torture is a crutch used by corrupt regimes in order to elicit false confessions and false admissions to support the lies that regime tells its constituency in order to advance its corrupt agenda, rob Americans of their money and make America less safe.
The way the Bush administration used it.
This guy wants to make it sound as if we were tickling terrorists with feathers.
When it comes to the SEARS training program. The trainees knnow it is limited and they can call it quits at any time.
As far as the specific documents Cheney wants released. It is curious that Cheney only wants certain pages released. It wouldn't be that he wants to take those specific documents out of context, now would he?
Like a detainee that already spilled his guts, Then later tortured to reveal the same info?
So if one only releases the tortures confession. It would look as though it worked.
But yes, release all the information by all means.
And for those that would argue that releasing torture documents helped terroristts to know and prepare for torture.
Bush released many detainees that were in fact tortured and I am positive they returned to tell everyone of their tortured adventures at the hands of the Bush ADM.
It's a red herring. It doesn't matter if torture works or not. It is illegal. And it is not something that a President can just ignore when he feels it expedient or necessary. The Convention against torture states that fact quite clearly. Furthermore, it doesn't matter if some public office (Justice, for example) permits it -- the convention against torture says it doesn't matter. So the 'just following orders' argument doesn't fly. The 'well, the Justice department said it was ok' argument doesn't fly. The ONLY argument left for them right now is whether a procedure which has been known to be torture for hundreds of years, is actually torture. They know it is torture. They know we have put people in prison for waterboarding our troops. But it's all they have left to argue, so they are desperate.
I would like to see Rivkin defending a rapist. "How can you call this rape? We engage in sexual activity with our spouses. We don't call that activity rape. So you can't call my client a rapist, even though he did this with an unwilling partner, repeatedly, and with malice aforethought."
Rivkin should be in prison or hanging from the gallows.
There is are HUGE differences between the SERE program and the real torture done in our name by the Bush war criminal administration:
The soldiers undergoing Sere training:
* volunteer for the program
* know what to expect
* can quit the program and stop the pain at any time
* know the 'torturers' are on their side and will not go past certain limits
* know they only have to endure for X number of days
The detainees at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib on the other hand:
* are being kept indefinitely without being charged or tried
* have been subjected to SERE conditions not for days, weeks, or months, but for YEARS
* know their captors don't really give a damn if they live or die
* cannot call a time out or 'quit the program'
* know they may never see their families again
* see that what they've been told about Americans is true
Some of the prisoners and detainees were definite threats when they were captured, but many of them just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or turned in by someone who wanted to settle a grudge or to collect the bounty we offered.
Excellent post.
I think he's on some heavy medication. He is placid and shows no emotion. He's a sick sonofabitch.
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