Cool. I’ll tell the truth about why I was speeding if you just promise not to write me a ticket!

See? It even works for little shit.

And not just the laws against lying about blowjobs under oath — we’re talking about laws against goddamn torture.

Well, actually, I assume the writer would still demand the laws against lying about blowjobs under oath be kept as is. Because the fucking Clenis must be punished at every step.

But hey, these are Republicans! They’re too fine and delicate a people to undergo something as trying as some straight fucking questions about their evil fucking behavior.

Recently, a photo album belonging to an officer in Auschwitz was uncovered. In it, you see various Nazi officials hanging around, smiling and having picnics like it was a summer campground, while people nearby were killed by the thousands every day.

The reason why I bring this up is because in that album, you never see a Nazi smiling and hamming it up for the camera in the same scene as a prisoner/corpse. That’s what makes the Abu Gharaib pictures even more sickening.

Since when would a pardon makes these guys tell the truth? None of them can lie straight in bed (even in the brothel/toilet stall of their choice).

Is this the same Stuart Taylor who “wrote the book” on the Dook lacrosse/Mike Nifong case?

I’m always heartened when a “journalist” takes up the cause of an unjustly-accused citizen, but I’m afraid the only unjustly-accused folks in Mr Taylor’s world are Goldman Sachs associates and Republican, White House officials.

Whoa. When did we sign the Magna Carta?

Isn’t that WaPo/Newsweek?

Enabling torture-prone regimes since some dumbfuk named Donald inherited mommie’s empire.

The fact is, goddamn! this is a busy blog today.

Wow. I can see Stuart Taylor as a Totally Frickin’ Awesome Marriage Counselor:

To get a full accounting of how Bob gave Mary that incurable STD, the president should give those accused of ‘having the little man on the field without a helmet’ a pass.

In fact, President George W. Bush ought to pardon any guys not using protection while sexing 50 other people, and possibly farm animals, from Bob on down who might plausibly face metaphorical immolation for sexual standards approved by Rick Santorum.

At least that’ll stop soiling the prestigious, acclaimed pages of Newsw…<>

Ultimately, my question is much simpler. See, I’m not a smart fellow, and I don’t have a lot to offer philosophically or politically that so many of you can’t do so much better.

But it pretty much goes like this. It’s over.

The lesson here is brilliant, honest people can establish a liberal democracy. But the end of the story is always tragic, as people cannot allow themselves to live outside of an authoritarian autocracy.

This great experiment will die, will be tried again, and will die again. And again.

Because we’re not capable of embracing freedom. Everything within us is evolved to bow to absolute, corrupt power.

Look up the Drake Equation. Look at the last variable. How long can an intelligent, spacefaring culture survive without destroying itself?

Between pollution and war? Maybe a few thousand years. I’m pretty sure our time is ending…

mikey

Hey yeah, that makes perfect fucking sense! We torture supposed bad guys to get them to tell us stuff and then don’t even give the guys who tortured them a slap on the wrist so they’ll tell us stuff!

Yowzers, it’s like a daisy chain of fantasticalness!

Can’t you just feel the groundswell of international respect?

This moron doesn’t understand how the “truth commission” in South Africa worked: pardons were issued only in exchange for, and after, telling the truth. He wants the pardons first so that… what? The fascists then go ahead and tell us everything out of the goodness of their hearts?

This is the worst of the shit discussed here today – it’s not just “some guy with a website”. It’s fucking Newsweek. And I wonder why I feel permanently enraged.

He wants the pardons first so that… what? The fascists then go ahead and tell us everything out of the goodness of their hearts?

But of course! You must follow TEH PLAN:

1) Pardon the enablers.
2) ??
3) JUSTICE!!

you never see a Nazi smiling and hamming it up for the camera in the same scene as a prisoner/corpse

Yeah, maybe that’s just an American thing.

http://www.withoutsanctuary.org/main.html is a collection of souvenir pictures and postcards(!!) taken at lynchings. Warning: gruesome imagery and overall depressing content.

the geneva conventions prohibits absolving people who commit war crimes

(Convention IV, Part IV, Section 1, Subsection III, Art. 148)

No High Contracting Party shall be allowed to absolve itself or any other High Contracting Party of any liability incurred by itself or by another High Contracting Party in respect of breaches referred to in the preceding Article
http://fletcher.tufts.edu/multi/texts/BH241.txt

preceding article:

Art. 147. Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates shall be
those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or
property protected by the present Convention: wilful killing, torture or
inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, wilfully causing great
suffering or serious injury to body or health, unlawful deportation or
transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling a
protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power, or wilfully
depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial
prescribed in the present Convention, taking of hostages and extensive
destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military
necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.

Well, he is right that if we created a society where laws were absolutely powerless and any wrong doing would be glossed over if you were just honest about it, people WOULD be a lot more willing to tell the truth.

Such as, “Why, yes, Mr. Stuart Taylor, I did rape, torture, and kill your entire family, simply to enjoy watching them die. Say, you mind picking up the tab for lunch? I left my wallet in your mother’s teeth as a make-shift gag while she bleed out onto the carpet.”

See? Isn’t it so much BETTER that way? There’s now downside!

The goals should not include wrecking the lives of men and women who made grievous mistakes while doing dirty work—work they had been advised by administration lawyers was legal, and which they believed was necessary to prevent terrorist mass murder.

See, I think “wrecking their lives” should absolutely be part of the goal. I’m sick and tired of these people walking away, scot free, from the death and destruction they caused and being allowed to get another job in another administration that allows them to wreak more havoc and cause more damage.

I want a blacklist, damn it. If people participated in war crimes or war profiteering or bribery or blackmail, then maybe, you know, they shouldn’t be allowed to be part of the government anymore. I’m sorry, but is that any different from pulling the CPA license of an embezzler or the MD license of a fucking serial killer?

They fucked up. They need to be held accountable. And yes, maybe a few of them fucked up in good faith or based on false information, but I think judges are really fucking good and taking shit like that into consideration.

I’m so sick and tired of watching people who should be fired, tarred, feathered, and run out of civilized society on a rail getting a pass, a promotion and a fucking raise.

Oh goddamn shit fuckity fuck fuck this fucking pisses me off! I agree with christian h. that this is the worst of today’s horrorshow. And I agree with mikey that this foray into democracy is winding down. I’m not sure I care anymore.

And even as I say that, I realize I do care, because my son is only sixteen years old and he’s inheriting this shithouse.

Drinking wine. Hot day, almost 10:00 PM and still 83. Was in the ghey 90s today. I locked my keys in the car in a grocery parking lot, black asphalt in full sun. The partner’s dad came with his car-opening kit and jimmied it open in about ten seconds, but we waited quite a while for him to get there, long enough to get a headache from the heat. Bush on teevee to start the day off in style, and all day long I’ve either been in class, looking at the horrors of wingnuttidude on this and other blogs, or dealing with obnoxious, irritating people.

Did I mention fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck?

I am slamming this wine. Snoqualmie Riesling, reasonable price and not at all bad. Alcohol only 10.5, but I’m gonna have it pounded in an hour. Then maybe I can sleep.

[…] even consider. These Bushies are normal guys like you and me. If I was a prominent reporter like Stuart Taylor Jr., I would know that because I just came back from a great cocktail party where I schmoozed with two […]

Such as, “Why, yes, Mr. Stuart Taylor, I did rape, torture, and kill your entire family, simply to enjoy watching them die.

Well I killed Stu Taylor’s family
Just to watch them die
And I won’t get in trouble
I’ll tell the truth; why lie?

One note:

Once a pardon has been issued, a person can be compelled to testify. The Fifth Amendment no longer applies because the person is not giving testimony against him or herself.

So, if these pardons were issued, people could be forced to tell the truth, under penalty of perjury.

The problem would be, if everyone told the same (pre-arranged, untrue) story, no one would end up convicted of perjury either. This is why criminal investigations are better. Only the first confessors end up getting immunity (or reduced sentence)… everyone gets to sweat bullets about who will crack. Soon, a few people who realize they’re going to get caught sooner or later crack, and then the tower comes tumbling down.

I was listening to a New Yorker reporter on NPR (Fresh Air?) and was almost instantly pissed off.

This reporter had written a book, “Teh Dark Side” and, from what I can tell from the interview, it’s a description of the development of the torture prograam well as a full-on exercise in apologetics. She talked about how Dick Cheney had a “sense of humor,” but his friends noticed he was different after 9/11. She talked about the “Great Sense of Responsibility,” Cheney and Bush felt. She talked about how the SCERE program was like a “virus” that had escaped it’s petri dish and metatastized out of control. Lots of passive constructions for all of it.

It’s all total fucking bullshit. The reality is that Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Nixon are childish pricks with a black-white view of the world. That is the simplest explanation for the torture regime — and the fact is that a majority of this country (maybe slightly less) — support that regime.

Where was Bush’s sense of responsibility during Katrina? Why, if he was so concerned about terrorism, did he attack Iraq instead of Saudi Arabia or Pakistan? Why did it happen that his deep, deep concern for the safety of the American people led him to an attack a country that PNAC decided to attack before 9/11? When will people stop making excuses for this shit and just call them monsters, and call this country monstrous for doing nothing about it?

And the caveat, of course, is that we’re all fucking monsters. That’s the whole point of a constitutional republic — don’t trust anybody. You don’t give unlimitted, unchecked power to ANYONE PERIOD. Full fucking stop. Anyone who THINKS unchecked power is a good idea should give it to me. Then I’ll lock all those people up and torture them. That will show them, and ultimately usher in a new era of enlightened Democracy.

Ash nazg durbatuluk….

BTW –

I know Presidents have a habit of pardoning people at the end of the terms.

Maybe Obama can start a new tradition at the end of his term of office: turning people over to the Hague for war crimes prosecution.

And maybe the million flying monkeys typing in my rectum will throw out a copy of “Hamlet” some day.

Sigh.

Why do evil people like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney feel they can simply break the law with reckless abandon?

Because, evil people like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney can simply break the law with reckless abandon.

QED.

A “national conversation?” Bullshit. We don’t HAVE national conversations. That’s smarmy code for “Congress will hold a few hearings, Senators will pontificate, Representatives will bluster for the camera, Congress won’t actually lift a finger to change anything and the whole business will be swept under the rug when it ceases to be politically useful.” What an absurd notion a “national conversation,” is. Bullshit. We elect representatives, we phone them up and tell them how we want them to vote, they ignore us, and life goes on. There’s no sense in which I or anyone else gets to have a “conversation” with anyone. I’m beginning to think that the foreign parliaments where the ministers practically end up in fist fights on the floor have a much healthier democracy than we do. Here, it seems as though there is nothing more important to our representatives and leaders than being a member of The Club. In the face of that, what’s a people to do?

Hey, it worked well to not pursue any more of the Iran-Contra investigations, since none of those guys ever dared show their faces in public again. I mean, who ever heard again from people like Oliver North, or Elliot Abrams, or John Negroponte, or John Poindexter, or the like.

i’m usually too prolix around here, so

MOTHERFUCKING WORD TO THIS BLOG POSTING.

sorry, couldn’t do it.

our country is run by criminals, straight up. we are like russia in that way. and china.

really, europe tends to do less of this, and scandanavia not at all. japan has some criminality at the top but not too much, korea has a ton, and you can write off the whole fucking middle east (yes, that includes 120% of our senior politicians have been indicted israel), all of africa, and a goodly chunk of south and central america.

these are facts. the reporters are really just stenographers in the face of these facts. even the good ones like mayer can’t really see the truth in front of them–“they can’t be convinced of something their job depends on them not understanding.”

year zero.

So, if these pardons were issued, people could be forced to tell the truth, under penalty of perjury.

Bushling: “I don’t recall.”

Court: “Okey-dokey.”

Result: FAIL.

The reason why I bring this up is because in that album, you never see a Nazi smiling and hamming it up for the camera in the same scene as a prisoner/corpse. That’s what makes the Abu Gharaib pictures even more sickening.

Yup. That’s the most horrifying thing about all of this; we’ve stooped to depths the Nazis themselves blanched at.

We haven’t done it to as many people – although if we had invaded Iran four years ago by now we’d actually be pretty close – but… Christ, how do you get the guilt for this shit off of you?

See, I think “wrecking their lives” should absolutely be part of the goal. I’m sick and tired of these people walking away, scot free, from the death and destruction they caused and being allowed to get another job in another administration that allows them to wreak more havoc and cause more damage.

Cheney walked into the White House in 2001 with more blood on his hands than Klaus Barbie.

“What about Magna Carta? Did she die in vain?”

As Roy Edroso has so aptly put it in ALICUblog post titles, this goes under the filing of “More Advice From Your Mortal Enemies”.

How about we just grab some of these evil bloodless fuckers off the sidewalk when they get out of their cars, citizen’s arrest them, and then citizen’s extrodinary rendition their asses off to the Hague ourselves. Why wait for slow moving, self-ass-covering government bodies to never do it?

If anybody has got beefs or squawks after we’re done, we’ll just ask for our pardon and tell them how it went down.

Yeah, I saw what Taylor wrote and fumed. If you want to puke some more, check out the Cindy McCain cover story lovefest in the Letters to the Editor.

“It’s a bad idea. In fact, President George W. Bush ought to pardon any official from cabinet secretary on down who might plausibly face prosecution for interrogation methods approved by administration lawyers.”

Ah, yes, that “pardon” might be good in the US, but travel outside those borders and I hope they ship the bastards of to the Hague. Bush might be able to pardon people under the jurisdiction of the US, but not under international law. Or better yet, just pull an Eichmann and give the f*ckers a small taste of “extraordinary rendition” on their asses and put ’em on trial ala Eichmann.

Someone needs to remind these American imperialists that Bush may be the so-called president of the US, but he is not the president of the world. It operates by a different set of laws.

The officials involved appear to have approved only interrogation methods found legal by administration lawyers, and in particular by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC).

Just. Following. Orders. Fucking Jesus H Christ on a pogo stick.

Absent pardons, pressure to go after GOP “war criminals” would make it very hard to unite Americans of all stripes behind solutions to the many economic and social challenges facing the country.

And, of course, uniting Americans of all stripes is far, far more important than preventing fucking torture and holding torturers accountable for their actions. Jesus wept, I haven’t even read any of the comments yet, and I’m fuming. Luschka (poor sibling of Qetesh, currently snuggled on my lap) is looking at me accusingly because I’m shouting.

Fuckety fuckety fuckfuckfuck. What a knobhead this man is.

Fuckety fuckety fuckfuckfuck.

My thoughts exactly.

Just. Following. Orders. Fucking Jesus H Christ on a pogo stick.

Well, orders are orders, after all.

I promise to explain exactly why I broke the law if you promise not to punish me for it.

And I’ll explain it the next time too…

And the next time…

And the next…

And the next…

And the next…

Someone’s getting nervous. Preclude any APOLOGIES? It is to laugh, imagining that chimp fucker apologizing for anything.

Ah, yes, that “pardon” might be good in the US, but travel outside those borders and I hope they ship the bastards of to the Hague.

Why would anyone ever want to travel outside the Bestest Country Evar? What is there to see? All Bush will do as ex-President is go live on his ranch and clear brush 24/7. That’s what he enjoys doing.

Or better yet, just pull an Eichmann and give the f*ckers a small taste of “extraordinary rendition” on their asses and put ‘em on trial ala Eichmann.

The Hague will be turned into a glass parking lot rather than let a single American be tried under international law. You think the country went nutso after 9/11, I can’t imagine what would happen if foreign military or intelligence assets carried out an abduction on American soil.

No, the best course of action if Bush pardons people who would have been convicted of war crimes at Nuremburg (including himself) is to pursue whatever means are necessary to invalidate those pardons. There has to be a way, legally, to do it.

What–well what everyone has said–but esp. what grolby said above,
about that kindergarten fantasy “a national conversation.”

Let’s have a national conversation about torture. Then we’ll have a national milk and cookies break, and then a national nap, and it will be time for national rhythm band!

Christ, how do you get the guilt for this shit off of you?

Trials, prosecutions & convictions.

Make it so. In America, not The Hague – that way, you can say you started to clean up your own mess … & feel a lot better when you travel abroad, as a bonus. Pols won’t play nice? Fire their asses, & tell them exactly why. Then charge them with aiding & abetting. Let the next bunch know they’ll be in the dock for complicity right alongside Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rummy & the rest, if they can’t grow a conscience. As the old saying goes, nothing clears the mind like the threat of a hanging.

If America preemptively pardons people who sanctioned torture, we will never restore our “good name.” We will rightly be seen around the world as a lawless torture state.

Hate to be the one to break it to you, but you already ARE seen that way around the world. If you opt for business-as-usual, that won’t improve … ever.

Sure is wild, to see the “America-hater-liberals” rightly despairing over the loss of their nation’s once-noble global reputation, as the right revels in it. They’re getting off on a case of “Bad Boy Mystique” writ large, not seeing just how obscene their “rebellion” is to people with some degree of real morality.
At this point, about all you haven’t YET enabled by law is cannibalism & human sacrifice – & I’m pretty sure plenty of neocon tards would be jake with those too, if someone “proved” their necessity to win The War On An Adjective. Lady Liberty has a sucking chest-wound, & these craven fuckwits are recommending an application of leeches.

Reading the comments over at Newsweek… virtually all of them are calling bullshit on the article. There’s your contingent of apologists, but it’s surprisingly slight.

I have a (perhaps unwarranted) degree of optimism that when US-sanctioned torture first came to light (and for a seemingly endless time thereafter), the denialism and “We do not torture” lies to our faces were accepted and swallowed by a majority, unquestioned.

But now, even a slimy little piece in Newsweek admits — is FORCED to admit, given the revelations prompted by angry, disgusted people — that, yes, our leaders permitted torture?

A little hope, then, that rage and anger aren’t a total waste of energy and blood pressure. And maybe, given a little more time, something more substantial is possible.

Also, if any torture-apologist fucker ever tries to take the moral high ground with me over something else, I will rip them a new one that will make them wish they’d been waterboarded. I might not be able to do much, but I can start by refusing to acknowledge any such cretins as “civilized” or “polite company.”

It is a fact that just the opposite of what Taylor claims is true. Being able to hold the threat of imprisonment over the head of the people being questioned is what will lead to the truth. Ask the guy in the picture to either tell everything about who ordered him to do the torture or go to prison. Then use that information to move up the ladder. It’s how we got the Mafia.

And if Bush does pardon the torturers, we should hand the whole bunch of them over to The Hague.

The author doesn’t understand what a Truth Commission is. The whole concept, as developed by the S. Africans, is to exchange amnesty for truth. If Yoo et al. are going to stonewall, which of course they will, then make the assholes criminal defendants.

By granting amnesty first, there is no leverage to get the truth.

Hey, you can’t blame the guy for trying. After all, they just successfully sold the idea that we needed to give the telecoms immunity so we can “investigate” what they did. A substantial portion of the country – including more self-styled “leftists” than I’m comfortable mentioning – bought it.

So why wouldn’t they try it again? It worked once, didn’t it?

Is it too late to suggest a Newsweek-burning party? Or was one already held when their position as front-line cheerleader for the DC Chimps was demonstrated the first time?

Because they know that modern American political culture simply does not believe in accountability for its political classRepublicans

Fixed yer typo.

Taylor misses the picture. Even when we immunize witnesses so they can’t plead the Fifth, we do it to the small fry so we can convict and hang the ringleaders. You flip the little guys, so that they’ll rat out the big fish. It’s that simple. It’s a moral compromise, and it lets some perps off the hook, but it’s done to achieve the greatest overall amount of justice. Giving everyone immunity doesn’t result in any justice meted out at all. If the big fish want to talk, let them do it in their memoirs (and confiscate the profits for any such memoirs under the Victim’s Protection Act or similar such laws).

Cheers,

Taylor misses the picture. Even when we immunize witnesses so they can’t plead the Fifth, we do it to the small fry so we can convict and hang the ringleaders. You flip the little guys, so that they’ll rat out the big fish

I know. The poor bastard has never seen a WIRE episode in his life.

Thanks for the pic’s. Horrible as they are, they remind us of the reality of the situation.

Thanks for mentioning Pelosi and the other enablers as well. This was a “bipartisan” movement to kill, torture, kidnap people never convicted of any crime (beyond, I suppose, being brown and speakin’ a furrin language, which are both prima faciae crimes to any Republican.)

I’m proud of little Stuey Taylor Junior for sharing his views that torture is acceptable when done by “good” people in a forum like Newsweek, so the rest of the world can see ‘Muricans for what they really are. Now that Tony Snow’s gone home to join Jaybus, I’m sure Stuey Taylor will make a good future candidate for White House Press Secretary, whichever candidate gets elected.

Pardons would further a truth commission’s most important goals: to uncover all important facts, identify innocent victims to be compensated

Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Yes, that’s why we want pardons. To, um, enable us to compensate the victims. Yes, that’s it.

The more I think about it, the more I’m coming to believe that if we released all the prisoners in Guantanamo and put the entire Bush Administration there instead, there would be less suffering, less violent death and an overall better world for it.

I’m absolutely serious. I’m sitting here with a pencil and paper, with a line down the middle, and on one side I’ve got “The Bush Administration” and on the other I’ve got “everybody locked up in Guantanamo”.

It’s not even close.

Well the irony of course is that previous “truth commissions” have been set up in countries that didn’t have functioning, legitimate legal systems, or where virtually the entire political leadership was implicated in the atrocities, or that faced the risk of renewed civil war or a military coup if the criminals were actually brought to justice.

So what Mr. Taylor seems to be suggesting is that the United States is now that kind of a country.

Who am I to say he’s wrong?

Amen brother. There is nothing to add.

But I will add this: pardons first? Fuck you, Stuart Taylor, you immoral scumbag. Remember when they immunized all those Iran-Contra criminals? That didn’t work out so well did it now?

The Fool said, July 17, 2008 at 15:37
But I will add this: pardons first? Fuck you, Stuart Taylor, you immoral scumbag. Remember when they immunized all those Iran-Contra criminals? That didn’t work out so well did it now?

Hey, watch it or you’re off to the camps. This is Oceania, there are no inconvenient memories and facts here, just inconvenient people who are taken care of. And although this is hyperbole for the sake of truth it is only slightly rediculous. When was the last time anyone who speaks the truth of the past was even mentioned in the media? Scott Ritter? Who’s that? Richard Clark? Was he in a boy band of something?

They ignore the best and mock the rest so that the vile can smile.

Here’s how it will go down.

Prosecutor: Okay, we just gave you guaranteed immunity for any crimes, now tell us what happened.
Admin: No

“Now that Tony Snow’s gone home to join Jaybus,”
At 57. Clearly they got the ricin pellet in before he followed up “Laughin’, Lovin’, Lyin'” McCellan’s recent work.

Since Nixon, letting the guilty Republican rat fuckers off has been the executed plan, and we get deeper in it every time. This time, it ended up being the same crooks coming back as FAUX TV experts to tell us how nobody has done any wrong.

And to those of you who think Obambi of the corporate owned will lift a finger to prosecute any Republicans, can I get some of what you are smoking?

The only way we fix America the divided is to make sure at least several of the big wigs pay, otherwise, it will never heal with the people.

When they do not do it, how many of you have the guts for a real revolution again?

“Cool. I’ll tell the truth about why I was speeding if you just promise not to write me a ticket!”

More like: I’ll tell the truth about how fast I was trying to go if you just promise not to write me a speeding ticket.

Over and over, if there’s one thing these dirtbags hate, it’s the justice system. Every time you turned around it was immunity from prosecution! Immunity from prosecution for us and our friends! No testifying under oath for us! And on the other side, no trials for terrorists! Don’t let them into court! No no no!

Over and over, trials are bad! No court cases! Tear the country apart!

Let’s have big, long, ugly, sensational trials with government officials saying “I don’t remember” And angry civil service clerks spilling the beans on all the monstrosities they had to witness. Let’s have 60% of the talk shows devoted to the latest testimony.

It would bring the country together like never before.

“The goals should not include wrecking the lives of men and women who made grievous mistakes while doing dirty work—work they had been advised by administration lawyers was legal, and which they believed was necessary to prevent terrorist mass murder.”

Funny, when I was enduring basic training back in 1970 we spent a bit of time going over the Geneva Conventions and learning the difference between a lawful order and an unlawful order. Carrying out an unlawful order made you just as liable as the person who issued that order so it behooved you to understand that difference and have the moral courage to refuse to carry it out. If I failed to do that my life deserved to be wrecked.

Its the rank hypocrisy and hubris of King Dubya that’s the most sickening. His “presidency” has permanently marred the already faltering reputation of a country that just 60 years ago stood for fair treatment of humanity. This idiot started wars over bullshit, violated a number of laws, wrote in retro-active immunity for himself and his minions and Congress just sits there thumb up ass, complicit..
Dear Secret Service Lackey’s Reading this:
While I want President Bush strung up from the highest fucking tree, I’m not stalking him, so take your investigation of me and shove it.

What’s it feel like to live in a banana republic?

In a truly fair world, we would be allowed torture these folks to “get the truth”. A pardon is not going to get us the truth – or discourage future torture. The ringleaders here must be prosecuted to prevent a repeat.

obviously, this white house administration has NOT learned anything from history. Even 600 years ago, Queen Elizabeth I knew that torture would get you nowhere. Only lies to make the intolerable pain stop.
Well, we all know G.W. doesn’t know how to read very well, if at all. But what about his cronies? Are they just into S&M? This is truly a DISGRACE! Now we hear that McSame wants to continue with torture. Wasn’t HE tortured in Viet Nam? We all know also that W. is a complete moron, but McSame, maybe it’s just Alzheimers.
WTF?

Well, personally, I know I’d feel a lot better if I were ever tortured, just knowing that my torturers were going to get a free pass.

Who wouldn’t?

Seriously, future historians chronicling the downfall of the American empire will pinpoint our era’s concept of “retroactive immunity before even being charged with a crime” as a key philosophical turning point.

Like, why bother even pretending to have laws, since we really don’t give a shit what they say?

Damn, we should have pardoned all the nazis by the same reasoning, they were just doing their job, and it was “legal” according to Hitler and his Nazi party.
Every human being has a responsibility to their own moral and ethical core regardless of what their government tells them. They should have felt inside that what they were doing was wrong. And they have to take responsibility for their actions.

Don’t prosecute the officials involved, of course not. Object-rape them, asphyxiate them, pulp their legs, slice up their dicks, stand on their nuts, hang them up until their armbones slide out and boing around on their tendons, or just beat them to death. That will ensure a full accounting without subjecting any well-meaning patriots to legal liability. Dibs on our Congressional leadership!

[…] http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/9894.html […]

If I were of a different mindset from Stuart I would say that prosecuting everyone involved in sanctioning and performing torture would net the same result as blanket pardons. 1. Prosecute everyone deserving of it. 2. Offer leniency to those willing to testify on behalf of the prosecution. 3. Proceed with the trials.

Isn’t that how it works with the little people who get prosecuted for things like drug dealing and racketeering? Reel in the little fish, the state obtains evidence, and those with the most criminal liability are held accountable.

This is a brilliant take down of a horrible premise and disgusting article.

Someone over at Digby suggested that once the people see that the telcos can get a pardon for breaking the law, EVERYONE will want them. Here we go.

BTW, I think that when anyone spots this new idea of “we have to pardon them to get the truth” applied to ANYTHING, especially torture, we should beat it down just like Brad did here.

Stuart Taylor has no credibility. He was a crony of Ken Starr who pushed for the prosecution of Bill Clinton.

Apparently, THAT partisanship was fine. What a hypocrite.

SHAME ON NEWSWEEK!

http://www.slate.com/id/2085/
http://www.observer.com/node/40428
http://www.observer.com/node/40386
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Taylor_Jr.

A sad state. The best of minds and purist of intentions will be undone by the sturpidity and mental sloth of the common man. Democracy is the apex of average decision making capability.

The human body and mind, and it’s capacity to endure pain and injury has been pretty much the same for a long time. I’m sure, excepting the use of electricity, that not much has changed in torture business.

If anything, the use of modern technology to inflict pain without being in close physical proximity to the victims makes it less fulfilling to the torturer.

My lawyer told me murder was legal…guess I get to go on a killing spree now eh?

Robert Green said:

“…really, Europe tends to do less of this”

Is that so?

Great post. Personally I want to see the torturers and their controllers and enablers, yours and ours, on live tv (Fox for preference), made to watch with their eyelids taped open as their own loved ones are tortured for *our* entertainment.

Perhaps we could start with the editor of Newsweek.

[Pst. Guys. Please don’t post people’s work numbers and encourage others to harass them at work. No good can come of it. Thx.

-Brad]

When Barack Obama appoints his new attorney general (I’m hoping for John Edwards) he should immediately charge him or her with using the new now legal ability of the executive branch to spy on Americans almost without limits to bug all communications by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and their aides past and present.

It’s incredibly important that these evildoers be brought to justice and not just because it’d make us feel better.

There’s ample evidence to suggest they’ve been working against the interests of the American people. They’ve worked in concert with nefarious characters who are on our terrorist watch lists like many in Maliki’s government in Iraq and let’s not forget Ahmed Chalibi who is accused of giving highly classified information to Iran. Under their watch billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of weapons have gone missing in Iraq, much of it suspected to have fallen into the hands of enemy insurgents, possibly even Al Qaeda.

And that’s just Iraq. It doesn’t take much imagination to suspect what they’ve been up to behind the scenes and will be with nationals of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

Once out of office Bush and Cheney will be looking to cash in for all those favors they’ve doled out to their cronies, many of them overseas.

They also very well may be interested in hamstringing President Obama with backroom deals amounting to treason.

There’s plenty of reason to suspect Reagan’s people, Bush’s father included, had a hand in prompting Iran to declare the weekend before our election in 1980 that they’d be willing to release our hostages only to leave Carter twisting in the wind. Releasing those hostages the day Reagan took office and his subsequent admission of trading of arms for other hostages in the Iran-Contra scandal seem to be more than just unlikely coincidences. It’s where the phrase “October Surprise” originated.

Further back in history we have Henry Kissinger and Madame Chiang Kai-shek doing Richard Nixon’s bidding whispering in the ears of the South Vietnamese negotiators at the Paris Peace Talks in 1968 to reject the peace treaty LBJ put together to end the Vietnam War shortly before our election. Nixon promised them a better deal if he was elected.

Neocons of Cheney’s ilk are likely to undermine an Obama administration that has pledged to take American foriegn policy in a different direction from their radical empire model. They are not the kind to just pen whiny op-eds for the WaPo if they can sabotage major initiatives covertly, especially Cheney.

In short, they won’t be morphing into choir boys, leopards don’t change their spots. They also can’t very well do without modern communications.

This surveillance shouldn’t be conducted with just an eye to avenge past wrongs. Bush could wave his magic pardon wand excusing all in his administration for crimes they don’t even admit are crimes and haven’t even been indicted for before leaving office obviating that path anyway. The more serious concern in any case is the ongoing danger to not just the Obama administration but to the Republic they pose. Does anybody think they wouldn’t try to subvert a Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement, a transition out of Iraq or a Iranian nuclear deal?

The new AG can use the new FISA law we find so sour and make lemonade if he or she is able to finally indict, convict and imprison Bush and/or Cheney. I don’t much care if they get them on the worst war crimes charges or just petty graft as long as they get them.

There will be several benefits to this. Our standing in the world will rise immediately. President Obama’s approval ratings here at home will soar. If the MSM clutches it’s pearls and shrieks it will only serve to marginalize them further. Sleazeballs like Curt Weldon and his arms dealings may garner the attention he deserves and earn himself a prison sentence. Most of the Republican party (and not a few Dems too) gulping at the thought of what wiretaps could reveal about them will swing 180 degrees and adopt Ron Paul and Bob Barr language when discussing the 4th amendment.

In the end if Bush and/or Cheney are prosecuted using the new FISA law then in an irony of ironies, you can expect congress to quickly see the “error of their ways” and move to restrict it’s use very quickly.

It’s a win/win and makes for a sweet drink from a very sour fruit.

Any prosecutions would also touch off years of partisan warfare.

Wow, that’s scary. It’s so different from the last 28 years, I don’t know how we would stand it.

I think that they are going to have to do better than that.

On a more serious note, the way to unravel this is to go after the the theft of all those billions of dollars. There is no such thing as a justifiable theft of a billion dollars.

Why don’t they pardon Osama bin Laden first? That would end the whole infamous “war on terror”. In fact, giving pardon is the most Christian action i can think of.

Under the Geneva conventions, if we were to do this any government on the planet would have full legal rights to try any of our government officials, soldiers, or bureaucrats with war crimes. It’s pretty clear, if a government refuses to try its own people under the Geneva Conventions, anyone can try them if they so choose.

No law can shield anyone from a War Crimes prosecution. Nor can a pardon.

Pardoning Nixon got us here. And that Good American President Ford who pardoned Nixon, is, ultimatelly, Bush’s enabler. And he seemed like such a nice guy, too.

LOL, make no doubt about it, it is surely going to get worse! Its not going to be pretty!

JT
http://www.Ultimate-Anonymity.com

Dear rest of the world. If we keep this up, please kick our ass. Thank you.

Where in the fuck does the MSM get people like Taylor?

I like what rollingmyeyes writes above. I would point out that it was Ford who brought Rumsfeld and Cheney into high profile positions, a payoff to Rumsfeld for leading the charge to make Ford House minority leader.

“I’m referring to my inbred English relatives”

Brad, as a fellow WASP I have to say: You’re English ancestors are NOT inbred.

The swing to fascism in the US has been nothing short of incredible.

Just 5 short years ago, Saddam Husseins use of torture, and the postulated existence of his so called ‘torture centers’ was given as a reason to invade. The premise being that torture was so horrifying, despicable and evil that application of extreme and immediate force was necessary to stop it.

A little while later, Bush pounds the podium with his fist and glares at the crowd and says ‘The US does not torture!’. Since torture is after all something pretty bad.

Then a bit later the Abu Ghraib photos are released, and we have the mock trials of the ‘offenders’, a judge says ‘naughty naughty’ and ‘tsk tsk’. The commanders and visiting CIA interrogator agents at the facility are unpunished, and darker more evil allegations like US troops ordered to rape children to coerce the parents of the children slowly fade from memory. Surely not the wonderful US would stoop so low? Liberal lies at work, they hate our freedom!

A bit later and we have wistful republican senators musing how useful torture would be to get information from terrorist suspects.. just as a hypothetical. Its used to save American lives, so whats the harm? Shows like 24 promotes a kinder, more Hollywood-glamorous view of torture, it sure seems good to me!

Later again, and people who denounce torture are called ‘traitors’ who want the terrorists to win. Torture is promoted as a patriotic initiative that every true American loves, since its essential to win the war on terror and stop the ever-present threat of mushroom clouds over US cities.

And here we are in the world of today, where Bush casually drops the line “I can abduct any American at any time and torture you to death in secret”, to be greeted with wild applause in Congress, the Supreme Court, and in mainstream broadcast media. We all love torture so much, when they come to take away our children in the dead of night be sure to wave and cheer our valiant ever vigilant police force, they are here for our protection, and are true heroes!

Holy fucking crap.

Well, I’ll never read that POS mag again. They all can drop dead.

Our President is a war criminal. Period.

I don’t know; I do interviews of suspected wrong-doers all the time, and I never have to promise them a free pass to get them to talk.

And no, it doesn’t require torture, just conversational gambits and good research. You work them into a corner where their only avenue of escape is admission, or outright denial of the facts. The first option gets consideration, and the latter adds false testimony to the rest of their litany of wrongdoing.

Wait a minute, I think I know which direction the maladministration took, as well as their supporters…

hitler called it “enhanced interrogation techniques” too.

and the chinese called it “water torture” not “waterboarding”

Questions?

christian h. said,
It’s fucking Newsweek. And I wonder why I feel permanently enraged.

Hey, you know it’s fucking NEWSWEAK and that’s why I haven’t read it in 30 years!

I am appalled to see honest people (I suppose) so opposed to asking, or demanding that captives on the battlefield tell what they know. You you would have to be totally removed from that situation to think that demand from captives are not warranted.

I lived on the battlefield for a while and I was in a stituation where information from the captors was paramount to the survival of my friends. Their information could save tens, hundreds, etc. of lifes.

Don ‘t ge me wrong, I don’t condone Asnswitch or such, but I do believe if your child’s life could be impacted by information gleaned from captors; you would be less pious in your thoughts. I agree, to aspire to impecable behaviotr is a just cause of government; but practically, information that decreases the loss of life for your cuase (family and friends) is important.

Go on, philosiphise, that is until you are asked to bear arms to protect youir life and whatever cause is important to survival of your loved ones. Your attitudes and behaviors would change with the situation…to excuse the informaiton taht captors could provide is to waste the life of youir friends..

i think I know which direction the maladministration took, as well as their supporters…

American is suck and now they go to libya and make it worse