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pecuniumBecause I spent much of today playing "whack-a-mole" at HuffPo.
Why?
Because George Bush admitted to more crimes.
Specifically he said he'd had Khalid Sheik Mohammad tortured, and would do it again.
He said he'd do it to, "save lives," but we know that's a myth; the myth of the honest answer.
The Washington Post had a recent article explaining that very thing (which anyone who has been reading me for the past six years... hence the growing collections of prize tickets from playing whack-a-mole with the torture mongers and apologists, has known for oh... six years, or so).
Dan Froomkin has a nice wrap up on the subject, but the money quotation is probably this:
Abu Zubaida was the alpha and omega of the Bush administration's argument for torture.
That's why Sunday's front-page Washington Post story by Peter Finn and Joby Warrick is such a blow to the last remaining torture apologists.
Finn and Warrick reported that "not a single significant plot was foiled" as a result of Zubaida's brutal treatment -- and that, quite to the contrary, his false confessions "triggered a series of alerts and sent hundreds of CIA and FBI investigators scurrying in pursuit of phantoms."
What a surprise. Beat on someone and he tells lies. Those lies can't be corroborated (or disproven) and limited assets to chase down plot and threats are diverted into blind alleys of wasted effort.
And George Bush, says he'd do it all over again, "to save lives."
Arrogant, ignorant, asshole.
Ok, so what does this mean? It ought to mean we try him, haul the evils he caused to happen into the harsh light of day, and (in a just world) sentence him to live the rest of his (I'd hope very long) life in prison.
If not, we can hope he is foolish enough to accept an invitation to Spain.
For really poetic justice someone might, while he's visiting Poppy in Kennebunkport, decide to invoke the "Noriega Doctrine" his father created, and swoop in and kidnap him to the Hague.
None of those, sadly, are going to happen. Therefore I shan't buy the champagne just yet, but a person can dream.
Why?
Because George Bush admitted to more crimes.
Specifically he said he'd had Khalid Sheik Mohammad tortured, and would do it again.
He said he'd do it to, "save lives," but we know that's a myth; the myth of the honest answer.
The Washington Post had a recent article explaining that very thing (which anyone who has been reading me for the past six years... hence the growing collections of prize tickets from playing whack-a-mole with the torture mongers and apologists, has known for oh... six years, or so).
Dan Froomkin has a nice wrap up on the subject, but the money quotation is probably this:
Abu Zubaida was the alpha and omega of the Bush administration's argument for torture.
That's why Sunday's front-page Washington Post story by Peter Finn and Joby Warrick is such a blow to the last remaining torture apologists.
Finn and Warrick reported that "not a single significant plot was foiled" as a result of Zubaida's brutal treatment -- and that, quite to the contrary, his false confessions "triggered a series of alerts and sent hundreds of CIA and FBI investigators scurrying in pursuit of phantoms."
What a surprise. Beat on someone and he tells lies. Those lies can't be corroborated (or disproven) and limited assets to chase down plot and threats are diverted into blind alleys of wasted effort.
And George Bush, says he'd do it all over again, "to save lives."
Arrogant, ignorant, asshole.
Ok, so what does this mean? It ought to mean we try him, haul the evils he caused to happen into the harsh light of day, and (in a just world) sentence him to live the rest of his (I'd hope very long) life in prison.
If not, we can hope he is foolish enough to accept an invitation to Spain.
For really poetic justice someone might, while he's visiting Poppy in Kennebunkport, decide to invoke the "Noriega Doctrine" his father created, and swoop in and kidnap him to the Hague.
None of those, sadly, are going to happen. Therefore I shan't buy the champagne just yet, but a person can dream.
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no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 06:57 pm (UTC)No, no, actual reading comprehension is also an option open to us.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 07:32 pm (UTC)What am I missing in those six words?
no subject
Date: 2010-06-09 04:40 am (UTC)What am I missing in those six words?
... most of what pretty much everyone - not just Terry - who has done any amount of interrogation OR dealing with prisoners or war OR being one has had to say on the topic pretty much, well, ever?
You might as well argue that me going to aikido and getting dropped on my ass by an acquaintance is the exact equivalent of a stranger hauling off and hitting me for no reason at all on the street. And for pretty much the same reason: in one of those scenarios I have reason to believe both that this behaviour is intended to benefit me, by improving my technique, and that should it ever go one inch beyond what WILL benefit me, someone will step in and help me.
And that's before we consider the fact that in BOTH of your examples, you're not talking about behaviour that is intended to produce accurate information. You have in fact produced two examples in which the intended result is compliance - which torture will produce.
Compliance does NOT, however, produce reliably accurate information. It produces all the information your subject has and quite a lot s/he doesn't and a side order of 'shit s/he thinks you want to hear'.
You seem to want to argue that because it is possible to get accurate information via torture it works - talking of definitions pulled out of one's ass. Sure it's possible.
It is just not possible to figure out which bits those are, of all the stuff you'll get.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-09 05:20 am (UTC)I find your reference to "actual reading comprehension" deeply ironic.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-09 05:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-09 05:29 am (UTC)You admit the lack of citation you refer isn't an actual lack, but rather a rhetorical trope (unless you decided at this remove, after year of citation that this time it was worth your time).
I'm not willing to continue allowing you to be a dishonest actor.
So, not because I am incapable of dealing with dissent (certainly years of forbearance here ought to prevent such a charge from having traction), but rather because you admit to dishonesty in your practice, I'm putting paid to your account and closing the book on you.