Former Bush National Security Council’s counter-terrorism director wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post this past weekend, saying that "trauma of 9/11" was a piss-poor excuse for the response of Cheney and the Bush Administration in the weeks and months that followed (Iraq invasion, Gitmo detention, illegal wiretapping, etc.): Yes, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice may have been surprised by … Read More
Remember That DHS Report?
Michelle Malkin apparently doesn't think the killer of Dr. Tiller is a "terrorist". He's an "extremist". She adds: Interesting how the t-word has been rediscovered. She has the memory of a moth. It was only back in April when the Department of Homeland Security issued a report equating right-wing extremism as a possible breeding ground for terrorist acts. The right wing … Read More
This Is All I Have To Say About The Torture Debate And The “Ticking Time Bomb” Scenario
Torture is illegal. It should be illegal. It should stay illegal. Now, torture supporters are all over the place saying, "But what about the 'ticking time bomb' scenario?" That refers to the hypothetical situation where we know that a dirty bomb is about to go off in the center of some major city, and we have some terrorist suspect in … Read More
Death Toll In Iraq
Fortunately, the body count from Iraq has gone down in the past few years. No longer do we hear about multiple deaths per day. Today, sadly, was a notable and grim exception, made all the more grim by the fact that five dead U.S. soldiers were killed — intentionally, it would seem — by another U.S. soldier. Three were wounded. The shootings took … Read More
Scare Videos
The party of spreading fear is at it again. In fact, they've pulled out the stops with this new video: Senate Republicans get bonus points for using Carl Orff's 'O Fortuna' (one of my faves), but beyond that, how stupid is this argument? Did they forget that the one thing America does pretty darn well is imprison people? Or do … Read More
When The Rule Of Law Is/Isn’t Important
Jonathan Chait reflects back on the late 1990's when the conservative right was all about "the rule of law": The Republican sensibility was best reflected by the Wall Street Journal editorial page, which not only crusaded for impeachment but demanded, in 2001, that Bill Clinton be indicted even after leaving office. The Journal rejected the logic of promoting healing and … Read More
Who Would Jesus Torture?
Pew Survey: The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey. *** White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified — more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least … Read More
Condi Invokes The Nixon Defense
Condi Rice, speaking to students at Stanford University: Q: Is waterboarding torture? RICE: The president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligations, legal obligations under the Convention Against Torture. So that's — And by the way, I didn't authorize anything. I conveyed the authorization of the administration to the agency, that they had policy … Read More
“Dead Certain”
Michael Goldfarb in the (conservative) Weekly Standard writes: Tonight President Obama said he was "absolutely convinced" that he had made the right decision in putting an end to the use of the harsh interrogation techniques employed by the Bush administration. After eight years of President Bush, it certainly is refreshing to have a leader who doesn't let himself become entangled … Read More
Rightwing Extremists Are Dangerous? Naaaaah…..
For a couple of weeks now, right-wingers have been all upset about a report issued by the Homeland Security Office which makes the argument that right-wing extremists are potentially dangerous, and we should watch them. Example of this include Timothy McVeigh and Eric Rudolph, who committed acts of terrorism in Oklahoma City and at the Olympics in Atlanta, respectively. Somehow, … Read More
Peggy Noonan’s Moral Compass
Peggy Noonan, December 21. 1998: "The Democrats had long labeled the impeachment debate a distraction from the urgent business of a great nation. But the Republicans argued that the pursuit of justice is the business of a great nation. In winning this point, they caught the falling flag, producing a triumph for the rule of law, a reassertion of the … Read More
What Krugman Said
Outstanding column today: [T]here are indeed immense challenges out there: an economic crisis, a health care crisis, an environmental crisis. Isn’t revisiting the abuses of the last eight years, no matter how bad they were, a luxury we can’t afford? No, it isn’t, because America is more than a collection of policies. We are, or at least we used to be, … Read More
Stipulation
Can we all at least agree that "torture" doesn't become "not torture" by virtue of the fact that the victim provides information? President Bush got on the world stage and said, "We do not torture". Now, it is beyond all doubt that we did conduct torture. The response from Bush defenders (and Cheney himself) is that we got good information … Read More
We Have Ways Of Making You Bolster Our Untenable Position
Bush/Rumsfeld/Cheney wanted to find links betweel al Qaeda and Iraq, so they could make their case to the American people that invading Iraq was a proper response to 9/11. They didn't have any evidence of links, but they wanted their Iraq War, so they tried to get that "evidence" out of terrorist suspects….by torture: A former senior U.S. intelligence official … Read More
Short Takes on Torture
* Marc Theissen writes a WaPo op-ed reminding us that, despite our outrage, "The CIA's Questioning Worked". No, he just can't bring himself to call it "torture". And as for it "working", Theissen writes: Specifically, interrogation with enhanced techniques "led to the discovery of a KSM plot, the 'Second Wave,' 'to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner … Read More