While I commend Sen. John McCain for speaking out on the Senate floor this week condemning those who have come out since the death of Osama bin Laden defending the use of waterboarding -- or as they want to call it, "enhanced interrogation" -- and claiming that the torture somehow worked to gain intelligence, McCain is still on the wrong side of the issue with saying he doesn't believe anyone should be prosecuted. Jonathan Turley rightfully pointed that out to Ed Schultz tonight.
He also expressed his disdain for the Obama administration and Attorney General Eric Holder's decision not to investigate and hold members of the Bush administration accountable for war crimes, which I share.
TURLEY: One of the most powerful things about McCain's speech is the truism that lies beneath it where he says, you know, being tortured is simply immoral. You know, I think much of the world is shocked by the debate that we're having. This whole question of did it yield usable intelligence has long been rejected by the world and by the United States and its treaties as a viable argument for torture. Torture isn't a war crime because it's never beneficial. It's a war crime because it's immoral, because it is a war crime.
And you can imagine how we look to the world in this debate when we have all of these officials who not only say that they ordered torture, but are trying to sell the American people on how good torture really is.
I also always cynically wonder about John McCain's political motivations any time he looks like he's doing the right thing. While I have no doubt that his personal experience with being tortured as a prisoner of war has as much to do with him speaking out as anything, he also still really doesn't have any use for any of the Bushies or George W. Bush after what they did to him when he ran against Bush for president and Karl Rove ran that whisper campaign against him in South Carolina. McCain always seems to have a penchant for doing the right thing if it means getting some digs in on his political enemies and ignoring wrong doings when it's politically convenient as well.
TPM has more on his Senate speech here: McCain Denounces Torture: 'The Very Idea Of America' Is At Stake (VIDEO):
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) took to the Senate floor Thursday to condemn waterboarding and other torture techniques, saying that the debate over these techniques is ultimately "about morality. What is at stake here it the very idea of America." [...]
In the time since Osama bin Laden was killed, a number of conservatives have sought to give credit for his death to George W. Bush, specifically for his decision to torture prisoners for information that they say ultimately led to bin Laden. McCain, who was tortured when he was a POW during the Vietnam War, has long been opposed to the interrogation methods implemented during the Bush Administration. [...]
He continued that he would oppose any legislation that would authorize a return to waterboarding or any other methods of interrogation that he believes "are torture, or cruel, inhuman, and degrading, and as such unworthy and injurious to our country."
McCain did offer some praise for those who implemented the techniques, saying that he understands why they were approved, "and I know that those who approved them, and those who employed them in the interrogation of captured terrorists were admirably dedicated to protecting the American people from harm." He also added that he doesn't believe anyone should be prosecuted for having used torture in the past.
McCain expressed similar sentiments in his op-ed at The Washington Post here -- Bin Laden’s death and the debate over torture.
And here's more from Turley's blog from guest writer Lawrence Rafferty -- Torture is still Torture, and it is Still Illegal.
At the advent to the Second World War Germany was the best armed, best trained, best led, army on earth, this is almost universally accepted fact and anybody who ever met them "in the field" will testify to this, and don't bother asking Fixed news and forget about the poser John Wayne too, I get my intel from British and Canadian soldiers who were actually there...........from day ONE.
The Germans thought they were invincible, they rolled through country after country, in some instances virtually unopposed, taking whatever they wanted for whatever reason they manufactured to fit. All to sate the appetite of their War Machine. North, South, East and West their republican errr, Nazi-torture loving, jackboot was felt by all. They were entitled, powerful and in need of oil, minerals, territory and resources of all descriptions,( and let's not forget security of the homeland). Most of their aggregation they justified as being preemptive in some cases they claimed they were liberating the enslaved.......................does any of this sound familiar, like recent familiar!!
The first casualty of republicanism is the truth.
Party politics are not only undemocratic, they are antidemocratic.
.. (Bush, Walker) who orchestrated the rise of the Nazi Party and the invasion of Poland orchestrated the invasion of Iraq ..
Prescott Bush owned shares in the company that was mining Polish coal and iron for the German industrial machine, years before the invasion on Poland. When the Polish government demanded they pay their back taxes, the owners shut down the mines, laying off thousands of workers.
The first prize of the German invasion of Poland were the very Silesian coal and iron ore fields Prescott Bush and fellow investors owned. They supplied most of the coal, iron, etc necessary for the German war machine. It was also the site of the Auschwitz concentration camps, where inmates were forced to work the mines until they were too sick or weak, then they were gassed and incinerated.
After the war, Prescott Bush collected $1.5 million (1951 dollars) for his investment.
Yes. Same plan exactly.
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
Prescott Bush was also a Nazi money launderer in his position at UBC. Standard Oil was also treasonous in giving the Nazis patented information on how to convert said coal into fuel and synthetic rubber, which they refused to share with the allies.
A huge rabbit hole, with a Bush slithering through the muck at the bottom.
"No one ever said these people were logically consistent."
- watchdog -
And after that (all of what you said, COcarpenter) countries agreed --and made and signed treaties-- that if they are going to send young men (back in those days, women too, now) into battle to steal resources and plunder countries, it was immoral to make them also subject to torture. Hence, they decided the rules of plunder would not include subjecting their own citizens to torture.
(I pulled that out of my ass just by connecting the dots, but do you disagree???)
far left loon >.<
In particular, the word "homeland".
Every time I see DHS, I think of "the Fatherland" and imagine men goosestepping about hands raised...
far left loon >.<
War Criminals covering their asses...period.
That's the bottom line , evil doers are simply without conscience .
Insanity , it is what it is , there is no understanding it .
It's annoying that we have to go through this again. Why is there any discussion? After WW2 - until the Bush Jr administration - torture was not accepted in the minds of Americans. Even before that I'm sure there were high standards. Where did these people come from who keep pushing torture and trying to redefine what it is? When will it stop?
It's like every generation believes that they are smarter than those who came previously. We may have more technology, but we're not smarter. Earlier generations dealt with these questions. We don't need to go over it again. We don't need a demonstration by a reporter somewhere that waterboarding, for example, is torture. Just accept that torture is immoral and move on. End of discussion.
It is beaming at us from the Bushies, and their minions at FOX propaganda channel. Bushie fascism is alive and well thanks to a corner soap box as big as the news business. We had our lesson in fascism, but the world has never seen anything like this before... A vast media empire devoted to promoting Bushie fascism and corporate rule.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Certainly we've never seen anything like it in this country , Murdoch and his band of whores are the enemy within , saboteurs and traitors , the big problem is that half the government ( the Republican party ) and Fox are as one .The MSM is heading in the same direction , has become a farce . Was not long ago that none of us could even imagine what's going on today . It doesn't look good at all for us .
Insanity , it is what it is , there is no understanding it .
that American civil liberties have been under continuous attack at least since ww2, both in congress, in state legislatures, via presidents, governors and through the courts. If the American voter knew the amount of money that has been invested by the wrong-wing and other groups countering all of the policies that have been passed in support of the majority of americans since fdr they would be flabberghasted. Torture is just once more contrary to american decency tactic by the wrong-wing, so better expect the worst at least until american voters get their spinning heads out of their complacent asses...
wem
"until American voters get their spinning heads out of their complacent asses " , I think we are in for a long long wait , doubt I'll see it in my life time .
Insanity , it is what it is , there is no understanding it .
...a citizen is tortured in a police station? Will the police officer get away with the former crime? As there are now precedents, can that officer fall back on that?
Mickey: "It was an epiphany. Do you know what an epipany is?"
Keoni: "NOT NOW MICKEY!"
Turley 2012
"Chemical Weapons and Flamethrowers are effective weapons, but we don't use them. It is universally accepted it is immoral to use them. The issue is not whether torture is effective (it's not); the issue is it's immoral."
-- 14 year veteran military interrogator who's been making the rounds recently
-- don't recall his name and can't find a video clip
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
Remember when the US had to get the bad guys because they tortured people?
The torture of solitary confinement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqdDCkcZlEM
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
which is what they are doing to manning, without charging him, but it's for his own good.
Keeping YOU safe, doncha know?
far left loon >.<
cause were so exceptional, and enlightened.
The quaint and obsolete Nuremberg principles
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_green...
interview with Benjamin Ferencz
http://www.cbc.ca/video/news/audioplayer.html...
Benjamin Berell[1] Ferencz (born March 11, 1920)[2][3] is a Romanian-born American lawyer. He was an investigator of Nazi war crimes after World War II and the Chief Prosecutor for the United States Army at the Einsatzgruppen Trial, one of the twelve military trials held by the U.S. authorities at Nuremberg, Germany.
It would be wrong to forget that, after 9/11, the overarching emotion in (almost) all of us was for vengeance. We wanted to hit "them" and hurt "them" the way it had been done to us. There were very few voices advising restraint -- the late Molly Ivins being one who did. At that place in time, with the blood-thirsty (and quite natural) emotion rising in the gullets of this country's citizens, we needed a president who could express our anger and pain without resorting to unchecked fanaticism. Alas, we had George W. Bush, whose cowboy instincts struck one chord -- bring 'em back dead or alive. I know it seemed right at the time, because I felt it too. Torture was a natural outgrowth. Good, decent, Church-going American citizens didn't CARE if we tortured. In other words we enabled the Bush administration to make war criminals of all of us. How soon we forget, especially when it is convenient to forget.
all of us. Many here saw through the farce as it unfolded.
Glad to hear it ron. I was signing anti-war petitions before "Shock and Awe" and had never heard of C&L, or blogging back then. I do recall bu$h's approval rating hitting around 90% back then.
Handy chart here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:George_W_Bu...
far left loon >.<
True. Good comment. (RIP Molly Ivins, one of the good ones.)
I was really fearful of what Bush might do after 9/11. I had never heard of Al Qaida, but Richard Clarke and the American intelligence community had, for sure. They were quick to pin the blame, and when the Taliban government in Afghanistan refused to hand over the perpetrators, I thought that military action in pursuit of bin Laden and Al Qaida was the right thing to do.
But I've come to believe that this seemingly justified action was a Bush administration smokescreen. Afghanistan was just a convenient cover for sending tens of thousands of troops, and choppers and tanks and munitions, into a staging area for the real mission -- the invasion of Iraq. That's why they held back at Tora Bora, when Al Qaida was reduced to a couple of hundred ragtag misfits running around in the snow, and subcontracted the job to the Afghan tribesmen of the Northern Alliance, who allowed their Muslim brethren to escape. The Bushies could have gone in and nailed ObL and AQ in January/February 2002, but how could they then justify maintaining a war force in Afghanistan?
Kinda makes one wonder about 9/11, itself, and the 9/11 story all over again too. It made a lot of things possible which otherwise would not likely have been.
far left loon >.<
Torture is counter productive because people who are tortured admid to crimes they/others never did. Hey, just torture me and i'll admit i'm fecking Hitler.
Bite my shiny metal ass.
http://www.startalkradio.net/
Michelle Bachmann gets called out by a 10th grader...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/high...
Bachmann would do the same thing to her as she does in every interview, repeat her talking points.
C&L needs to find this little girl for an interview.
is intended to be a factual statement
Go Amy!
"No one ever said these people were logically consistent."
- watchdog -
Remember when Bachmann announced she was going to hold classes on the US Constitution for the new batch of Tea Party Congress Critters?
I cringed.
And guffawed.
Go Amy !!
When will government of the people, by the politicians, for the corporations perish from this Earth?
Not soon enough!
It's not a war crime if your lawyers say it's okay. Too bad for the Japanese and German soldiers executed after WWII who didn't dream up this lame excuse. The excuse of "just following orders" has been roundly rejected but this one of getting your lawyer's permission is acceptable? Please....
Turk Meister
They also renamed it. It's not torture if you call it a cute-little-puppy-with-big-sad-eyes.
It's so perverse to label barbarism and savageness as 'enhanced'. But it's what republicans do best. Salesmen. Disgusting. It should be called 'barbaric interrogation' or 'savage interrogation'.
The bushies labelled torture 'enhanced interrogation' not anyone else. The rest of us should never utter those words.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
But the defense was invalid (just as it is here) because those lawyers did not have the authority to override the Geneva and Hague Conventions. All this line of defense did was land the lawyers in the dock as accessories to the crimes against humanity, as well as co-conspirators.
It's good to see that there are people here who accept the existence of morality. Please remember that if there ever comes a time when you want "government" to do something to someone that you do not want done to you.
It's because Obama didn't pursue accountability or prosecutions for the Bushies that the current jackals on the right are emboldened to continue to defend torture.
+1
And repeat it. Don't forget that part. Torture ain't going nowhere, except maybe closer to home.
I don't think either party is interested in getting harsh on torture in case they decide it will be useful for their ends. This is the picture of America I have today. The end ALWAYS justifies the means and make sure to pray for MORE MONEY!!
far left loon >.<
Just think what a different and better country this would be, if Turley were on the SCOTUS instead of one of the five fascists.
If I were a psychopath, I would join the republican party, and get in on the gravy train taking the Teabircher morons to the cleaners.
It's funny how the arguments by the pro-torture crowd have changed over the years.
First, it was we do not torture.
Then, it was only a few low-level operatives committed torture, but it was not ordered by the higher-ups in either the CIA or Pentagon.
Then, it was only in certain cases and with very bad people did we torture.
Now, it is torture works, so we have to keep doing it.
Pathetic. I agree with Turley, I can't believe we as a country are having a debate about torture. The is all based on the fear that the pro-torture, right-wing crowd has for anything that is not white, Christian or Westernized.
McCain always talks it up big against torture, but when it comes down to it, he votes for it.
Even though he's one man in the room who should know better, politics come first.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/13/mcca...
After all, if they really opposed torture, they would have prosecuted Dubya's Willing Executioners by now. It's not like they couldn't win convictions, since Darth Cheney and his henchmen brag about committing the torture.
Imagine if the Justice Department had refused to even investigate the murder of civil rights workers in Mississippi in the 1960s. The logical conclusion is that they condone the murders.
Just as Obama and Holder condone the kidnapping/torture/murder regime of the Crawford Caligula.
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