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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 07:37 pm (UTC)I was paralleling your arguments to show that the method of interrogation doesn't bear as strongly to the argument as the "we need the tool" people want it to, provided it has a reasonable chance of working.
I go from there to "Hmm, someone who did this for a living says that the 'less evil' way works, for (and if I misquote him, I hope he won't mind much) 'convinc[ing] this guy to give us the information we need to kill his buddies'" (which I think anyone reasonable would consider a higher barrier than 'convinc[ing] this guy to give us the information that will stop him from killing my buddies') and say that given that we don't need the tool, and it's wrong to use it, WTP?
People have this idea that "only torture will work." They have yet to give me a convincing demonstration of that. And anyway, the chance of me being in a terrorist attack is about one-hundredth that of me being hit by a car crossing a random street, and I do that 14-odd times a day. I don't seem to need torture to make that chance half as likely; why should I do anything about something 1% as likely? Especially when it compromises my and my country's principles?