The American Spectator

Sean| 5.11.09 @ 7:39AM

Who's torturing logic? Hyman says the enhanced interrogation stopped a major attack, then says the methods are too soft to be effective. What he doesn't address is..at what point does the risk of killing the subject and guaranteeing the ticking bomb's success outweigh the chances of other methods, like sodium pentathol?

CraigZ| 5.11.09 @ 7:46AM

This may be an excellent opportunity for a public spirited prosecutor to bring torture charges against those Defense Department SERE instructors who used waterboarding. As a mark of our deep respect, we must take seriously the legal opinions of our Constitutional Law Scholar of a President. His opinion is not the same as yours or mine. Let him acquiesce to the public trials that result from the application of his Presidential Logic and let the world can contemplate just what kind of an idiot Obama truly is.

S.L. Toddard| 5.11.09 @ 7:50AM

Whether or not good intelligence was gained is entirely irrelevant. All that is relevant is whether our torturers broke our laws. And it's rather obvious they did. Drowning someone until they talk is, quite obviously, "torture". No sane person believes otherwise, regardless of what they say. If, back in the days before our torture regime was instituted and before the euphemism "waterboarding" replaced "water torture" and became (sadly) a household word, if anyone had been told an American soldier was repeatedly nearly drowned until he confessed, no one would deny he was tortured. Nobody. It's only because we (sadly) adopted the water torture technique from Red China that we try to pretend otherwise. Which reminds me - can you believe THIS guy:

*****
Harold E. Fischer Jr., an American Flier Tortured in a Chinese Prison, Dies at 83

Col. Harold E. Fischer Jr., an American fighter pilot who was routinely tortured in a Chinese prison during and after the Korean War, becoming — along with three other American airmen held at the same prison — a symbol and victim of cold war tension, died in Las Vegas on April 30. He was 83 and lived in Las Vegas.

From April 1953 through May 1955, Colonel Fischer – then an Air Force captain – was held at a prison outside Mukden, Manchuria. For most of that time, he was kept in a dark, damp cell with no bed and no opening except a slot in the door through which a bowl of food could be pushed. Much of the time he was handcuffed. Hour after hour, a high-frequency whistle pierced the air.

After a short mock trial in Beijing on May 24, 1955, Captain Fischer and the other pilots – Lt. Col. Edwin L. Heller, First Lt. Lyle W. Cameron and First Lt. Roland W. Parks – were found guilty of violating Chinese territory by flying across the border while on missions over North Korea. Under duress, Captain Fischer had falsely confessed to participating in germ warfare.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/us/08fischer.html?scp=1&sq=Harold Fisher&st=cse

*****

This American Hero who fought for his country, who shot down 11 MIGs in 175 missions, who won the Silver Star and the Distinguished Service Cross, who was captured and brutally tortured - so brutally in fact that he gave a false confession - you'd tell this American Soldier what? That he wasn't tortured? That you received worse in a frat initiation? That the treatment that broke this man of honor wasn't so bad? I mean after all it's not like he had his skin peeled off with hot tongs or anything. Hell - he wasn't even a victim of water torture. No one nearly drowned HIM. Here's how he described his captivity:

“I was grilled day and night, over and over, week in and week out, and in the end, to get Chong and his gang off my back, I confessed to both charges. The charges, of course, were ridiculous. I never participated in germ warfare and neither did anyone else. I was never ordered to cross the Yalu. We had strict Air Force orders not to cross the border.”

“I will regret what I did in that cell the rest of my life,” the captain continued. “But let me say this: it was not really me — not Harold E. Fischer Jr. — who signed that paper. It was a mentality reduced to putty.”

You must thing this guy was a coward, no? I mean what - he stays in a room that's doesn't have a water-bed and listens to a little whistling now and then? Someone asks him questions? And THAT left his "mentality reduced to putty" People ask ME questions all the time - am I being tortured?

The US has treated prisoners captured in the "War On Terror" far worse than Col Fischer was treated. He was never a victim of water-torture, was he? No - all that happened to him was that he stayed in a room that wasn't quite The Ritz, listened to some whistling and was asked some questions. Sounds pretty tame doesn't it? And that reduced this guy's "mentality to putty". He must be a pussy right? If this American hero ever said he'd been tortured you'd laugh him out of the room and call him a coward, no? It's funny, because at the time the whole country considered what the Chinese did to him as torture and considered him a hero for enduring it. Isn't that ridiculous to you guys? Don't you Neocon Warriors consider this guy a weakling? Wouldn't you tell Col. Harold E. Fischer Jr that what he went through wasn't torture, and that it was no worse than a fraternity stunt? Can you believe there was outrage in America at his treatment? This country must have been FULL of hard-left civil-liberties-extremists back then - in the 50's.

Ryan| 5.11.09 @ 8:06AM

The argument isn't half gone through on the side of the left. We DON'T hear, "what if we didn't?" We DON'T hear, "WHY are we doing it?" We DON'T hear, "What are the goals?"

They don't like the answers. They simply chalk it all up as torture, equate it all to those who tortured for DIFFERENT reasoning, and throw it out the door.

They don't ask whether or not if our society is inherently better than dictators, communists, Nazis, or anyone else. They don't look at the results and entertain the entire question. They don't ask how the greatest Republic to ever exist needs to be protected....because they somehow believe that we're just as good - or bad - as everyone else out there.

Darin| 5.11.09 @ 8:15AM

So this kind of mistreatment is wrong, but it's OK to dismember an unborn child or suck their brain out of their head while they're in the birth canal? I don't want to hear any legalize from anyone opposing "torture" if they don't likewise oppose abortion. Such people are blatant hypocrites.

For those who oppose abortion and so-called "torture," I welcome debate. Perhaps we can bring Daniel Pearl's family into the discussion and see if they think this is "torture."

Indiana Alex| 5.11.09 @ 8:25AM

What really nice bunch of liberal talking points. Great parroting guys!

The Obama administration filed a brief last week that states that "intent" is required for torture to be illegal under the law.

The "torture" memos make it clear there was no intent to torture.

According to the Justice departments of this and the previous administration, there were no laws broken.

This is just a political show, designed to distract, with ACORN and MSNBC trumpeting and the liberal puppets echoing.

Michael L. Hauschild| 5.11.09 @ 8:27AM

Interrogation, "enhanced" or otherwise is not torture. The discovery of information from enemy combatants which may save the lives of civilians, our own or allied armed forces is justified. The absolute hypocrisy of the current administrations "ends justify the means" approach of socializing our economy while failing in the most pronounced way in dealing with our most heinous enemies would be laughable if not so tragic. Having witnessed first hand the "Tiger Caging" techniques of some SE Asians on their own countrymen (who had long passed the stage of any further disclosure) be assured that the harmless technique of "waterboarding" that many of own elite units use as a simple training exercise is benign. What part of "they talk but are not harmed in any way" don't some understand?

stu.b.con| 5.11.09 @ 8:33AM

To the posturing, sanctimonious, condescending, holier than thou (sniff) "this is America, we don't torture" crowd. Besides the obvious fact that our enhanced interrogation techniques do not approach the actual torture and mayhem our enemies would and do inflict. This despite the fact that it is proven that EIT prevented more death and mayhem on OUR soil. God you people make me sick. Darin is spot on, you and yours have no problem with the murder of the unborn in the most barbaric manner yet flagellate over our "treatment" of Khalid Sheikh Muhammed. The mastermind of 9/11, the barbarian who hacked off Danny Pearl's head while and bragged about it. You miserable hypocrites make me sick to my stomach.
Perhaps we should petition the government to release photos of the remains off those who jumped out of the WTC, or maybe show the video of KSM murdering Danny Pearl, or perhaps you bastards should be made to sit down and watch a doctor suck the brains out of their unborn child.
Hypocrites!

S.L. Toddard| 5.11.09 @ 8:47AM

" They simply chalk it all up as torture, equate it all to those who tortured for DIFFERENT reasoning, and throw it out the door."

Haha. "We torture for GOOD reasons!" That's your excuse? Wow. Regardless of the really wonderful reasons we have for torture, it's *illegal* - period. Having a good reason for breaking the law doesn't make one unaccountable. Also, everyone who tortures thinks they have a good reason. Nazis, Soviets, Muslim extremists - they all think they have good reasons. That's why US law declares that there are NO good reasons:

"No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture"

Sorry - your defense of torture is illegitimate.

"They don't ask whether or not if our society is inherently better than dictators, communists, Nazis, or anyone else."

That we didn't torture was one of the primary reasons we used to be "better" than the peoples you've cited. It used to be THEY who tortured, THEY who implemented secret intelligence programs to spy on their own citizens, THEY whose leaders were above the law. You people have allowed and encouraged the U.S. to become THEM.

Nice work.

Big J| 5.11.09 @ 8:58AM

S. L. Toddard:

Nice language. It is such a shame that you freakin liberals cannot express your viewpoints without resorting to obscenities. People might actually take you a little more seriously if you refrained from using profanity.

Excellent point, Darrin, but remember: the left conveniently calls it "choice", not the brutal murder of the most innocent being known to man, the unborn. The hypocrisy on display by the left in this country is rapidly becoming a bore.

I wonder, S. L. if your viewpoint would change were it one of your family members that was a target of a beheading, a blown-up bridge or a chemical detonation? It is a very likely scenario. The 3,000 Americans that were killed on September 11th, 2001 were just showing up to work - a day like any other day. What if it was YOUR wife, YOUR mother, YOUR daughter or son? Can you honestly say that you would still oppose these techniques? If you were to respond "yes", I am afraid I would believe you a liar, sir.

While the government has taken on many tasks that they are not inclined to as stated in The Constitution, one of the tasks that is required of them is the security of this nation. Given the circumstances, I might have treated these murdering terrorists much worse. That's just me. When it comes to protecting my family from harm, you would be hard-pressed to find a more formidable adversary.

Apparently, S. L.'s family, uh, not so much.

armykungfu| 5.11.09 @ 9:09AM

I am a SERE graduate and have undergone all of the "torture tecniques in the memos. It is not torture.

When the next atack comes Americans will know who to blaim.

S. L. Toddard| 5.11.09 @ 9:36AM

"What if it was YOUR wife, YOUR mother, YOUR daughter or son? Can you honestly say that you would still oppose these techniques?"

What if it was YOUR wife, YOUR mother, YOUR daughter or son who was tortured or killed in custody? Would YOU oppose THEIR methods?

You are arguing that America should behave like Nazis, like the Red Chinese, like Al-Qaeda. You would turn America into THEM.

Disgusting .

Matthew Mehan| 5.11.09 @ 9:36AM

Why do these techniques work?

Slim| 5.11.09 @ 9:38AM

All
Serving in the Cold War, Aircrew members were subject to SERE POW simulation techniques, in the event we were captured during flight ops over or around Red Countries. The SERE simulations makes the actual interrogation techniques described above look like a picnic. The infamous 4 by 4 box for hours at a stretch was nice, allowed plenty of time for reflection. The endless, seemingly mindless, interrogation with directed lights, faceless interrogators, threats most vile, all were endurable. These high level, controlled, and monitored by Medics, simulations embedded one thought. DO NOT GET CAPTURED.
Today, we are more enlightened. BS> we are more willing to sell our honor and safety to the Left.
end
Semper FI

S.L. Toddard| 5.11.09 @ 9:42AM

"While the government has taken on many tasks that they are not inclined to as stated in The Constitution, one of the tasks that is required of them is the security of this nation. Given the circumstances, I might have treated these murdering terrorists much worse. That's just me. When it comes to protecting my family from harm, you would be hard-pressed to find a more formidable adversary."

Well of course you would. You're a Neocon Chickenhawk Armchair Warrior, ever ready to send other people's kids to do violence and bleed and die to satisfy your sick need to feel like a Tough Guy. The rest of us might not be so eager to trash America’s honor, to trample her Constitution and to disregard everything that makes her great. The rest of us, maybe, care a little more about America than we do about talking tough.

Tony Gerard| 5.11.09 @ 9:47AM

Well, one thing we know about the SERE techniques: They destroy the ability to spell.

Seriously, anybody who cares to investigate knows that the SERE techniques were adopted from the techniques the Chinese used to force captured Americans to "confess" to war crimes. We called them "torture" then, and we called the process "brainwashing," a term that has remained in our language. To pretend that "walling," and confinement, etc., are similar to hazing is both inaccurate and intellectually dishonest. Hyman does not, cannot, really believe that these are benign schoolyard torments; such a comparison is a transparent attempt to deflect criticism by pretending that genuine concerns are a joke. Incontrovertibly, we have long called the techniques he ridicules "torture" when they have been used against our soldiers.

Jack| 5.11.09 @ 9:49AM

Dems have lost the ability to think critically. All info dumps into the hopper of political calculation for the purpose of re-election. The Country's best interests are not in the calculation.

Steve Stone| 5.11.09 @ 9:56AM

Astounding that Mr. Hyman choses party loyalty over traditional American values.

Freya| 5.11.09 @ 9:56AM

ArmyKungfu,

One big diff. You knew you were safe. You were uncomfortable, and had to endure pain and whathaveyou, but you knew you were safe in the hands of your fellow soldiers. A prisoner does not know that.

Appleby| 5.11.09 @ 10:08AM

I was at university in the 1960s. If this stuff is torture, every single university student who was at a public university and anybody who attended MY university in 1970 has suffered the tortures of the damned and ought to be put on the Federal payroll for life. Not to mention all the wireheads who sit torturing themselves (and us) with their binkies jammed in their ears and cranked up loud enough to be heard three rows away. Or people forced to ride all the way from Montreal to Toronto after midnight in a Greyhound bus listening to a Valley Girl describe her three day weekend minute by minute into her cell phone.

armykungfu| 5.11.09 @ 10:11AM

Freya,

The real diff. was that I didn't send my followers out to intentionaly kill civilians nor did I saw someones head off with a dull knife.

It's not torture. If you won't take the word of the people who have been through it than you are simply not willing to listen. I hope that when the next attack comes it isn't your loved ones who pay for this willful Naiveté.

Freya| 5.11.09 @ 10:12AM

Ryan,

"The argument isn't half gone through on the side of the left. We DON'T hear, "what if we didn't?" "

You know what? I don't hear that question from the right either, at least not one that gets an honest answer. It's always, "If we didn't, and used other techniques instead, there would have another terrorist attack, and if you think any different, you're a dirty lib who wants to destroy America. End of answer, now shut up." Non-torture techniques have worked pretty well, against all manner of enemies, for over sixty years, and now you're telling us they're worthless all of a sudden.

"They don't ask whether or not if our society is inherently better than dictators, communists, Nazis, or anyone else"

Another question that I don't hear from the right: WHY our society is inherently better. It's better because we don't do certain things, like torture. There are lines we just don't cross; we have a national morality that we stick to. I don't know if we've actually crossed the line with water-boarding, but the logic in this article seems to be that as long as we aren't as bad as the other guy, we're fine, and that's just not right. It's like saying that someone's not a thief if he only stole a couple of hundred bucks. You're a thief or you're not. We tortured or we didn't.

Freya| 5.11.09 @ 10:14AM

armykungfu,

So, it's not torture because they deserve it?

Doug Welty| 5.11.09 @ 10:15AM

Sorry, guys 'n gals on the Left, but speaking from experience as a 1975 Warner Springs SERE trainee, it just ain't torture. As for "knowing you're safe" in SERE school, it is to laugh. What you know is that, like most military training, it's dangerous, that serious injury is unlikely but possible, and that death is even more unlikely, but possible.

Freya| 5.11.09 @ 10:17AM

"Mohammed revealed intelligence that allowed U.S. officials to disrupt a post-9/11 follow-up terrorist attack planned for the west coast"

Not really.

http://www.orble.com/the-torture-memos-and-an-la-story/

http://www.orble.com/the-torture-memos-and-an-la-story-part-2/

JP| 5.11.09 @ 10:22AM

SL Toddard, aka Tom Paine,

The CIA can do whatever Congress allows. Congress knew full well what was going on. BTW, no one ever died at the hands of the CIA, which cannot be said of the CHICOMS or NVA, or Taliban, or AQ. As a matter of fact, the Rangers recently killed an AQ operative near Kandahar. It turned out he was wearing a $70,000 prosthetic knee. He spent 3 year at Club Gitmo and got via the taxpayers over $200,000 in medical care. Within weeks of his release he was back in Afghanistan killing Americans.

Congress allowed the CIA interrogations; that makes it legal. Case Closed.

armykungfu| 5.11.09 @ 10:22AM

No Freya, it's not torture period. Witnes the fact that I and tens of thousands of other US servicemen and women have been through it for training. I have not been tortured. I sleep soundly at night. I have never even heard of someone, and most of my closest friends have also been through the training, who suffered any ill effect. The idea of "torture" that doesn't cause pain or leave any lasting effects and that we do to ourselves is frankly ridiculous.

Anthony| 5.11.09 @ 10:34AM

It's time for the Leftist Democrats in Congress to demonstrate their moral superiority to us once and for all. Every Democrat member of Congress should be water boarded at least twice. If we lose 50% of them, well, they will have sacrificed themselves for the greater good. Others will be spared, what more can a smug leftist moral superiorist aspire to? Oh wait, they don't really give a damn about these people, they just want the issue. Oh, hell, water board them anyway!!

Big J| 5.11.09 @ 10:37AM

"Well of course you would. You're a Neocon Chickenhawk Armchair Warrior, ever ready to send other people's kids to do violence and bleed and die to satisfy your sick need to feel like a Tough Guy."

Very predictable, Toddard. Run out of self-proclaimed "relevant" talking points, start slinging mud. Reminds me of the 2 year old throwing a temper tantrum in the store because he didn't get his candy.

You speak of trashing America's honor. Has it occurred to you that the radical Islamic Jihadists want nothing more than to destroy America? How does America have honor if it ceases to exist?

"What if it was YOUR wife, YOUR mother, YOUR daughter or son who was tortured or killed in custody? Would YOU oppose THEIR methods?"

I would hunt the perpetrators down and kill them. It's that simple. Oh, that's probably just my sick need to feel like a tough guy. Actually, it is my responsibility to protect and support my family. That is what it means to be a man. You might try it sometime. Very rewarding.

You are so caught up in your liberal ideology that if we just play nice with others, everyone will like us and we can all sing Kumbayah together around the campfire. Pathetic. You would have thousands if not millions of your fellow countrymen murdered so you can feel good about yourself? Do you not see the absolute insanity in this viewpoint? Or have you consumed so much of the Guyana punch that you just don't care anymore?

Unfortunately, your peace, love, pass-the-pipe view of this world is rampant in our political system. The preferred method of "protecting and defending the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic".That should scare the heck out of every American.

Even you, S.L.

Ryan| 5.11.09 @ 10:38AM

Amidst all the questions, here's one other thing no one is asking...

What is torture?

Big J| 5.11.09 @ 10:42AM

Ryan:

I have a sincere answer to your question.

Having to read a post by Toddard, T Paine and others.

Now THAT'S torture!

Pat| 5.11.09 @ 11:13AM

Not one of those defending the use of torture on another human being would want to take it themselves for five minutes - how inhumane they are. We become monsters following their lead, while allowing a method that doesn't work - how stupid. Our founding father George Washington condemned the use of torture by the British on Americans; all spiritualities call it a sin. Why do these conservatives still support it?

S.L. Toddard| 5.11.09 @ 11:19AM

"I would hunt the perpetrators down and kill them."

So by your logic the families of people detained and tortured by the US (or killed in bombing attacks by the US) have the moral right to commit terrorist acts against the US. You condone terorism and believe it is morally justified.

Sick.

George Hanshaw| 5.11.09 @ 11:27AM

The author asserts this wasn't torture.

What nonsense. This is like Clinton parsing what the definition of 'is' is. OF COURSE this is torture.

His critics assert this was inhumane.

What nonsense. These were admitted terrorists who were quite open about what they did and what they planned to do, who were totally forthright about planning on killing more innocent people. Do you seriously believe it would have been more humane to NOT EXTRACT this information from them? Would the relatives of the dead innocents have thanked you for following your high ethical principles at the cost of their loved ones?

The primary duty of any government is to protect the lives of that government's people. Protecting the civil rights of the enemies of your people is pretty far down the list of non-essential.

John Navratil| 5.11.09 @ 11:28AM

Ryan-- "What is torture?" is an excellent question, indeed. The discussion never seems to be whether water boarding is torture. It is assumed or denied but never debated.

The Democrats control both houses and the presidency. They can write a bill today to declare water boarding is torture and Obama will surely sign it. Why haven't they?

The issue is political and it is something the hated Bush can be flailed with. Now that we know that Pelosi was briefed and approved expect the rhetoric to become even more bizarre.

S.L. Toddard| 5.11.09 @ 11:33AM

"What nonsense. These were admitted terrorists who were quite open about what they did and what they planned to do, who were totally forthright about planning on killing more innocent people."

Who is "they"? Are you referring to the hundreds of innocent people we detained without trial, abused and then released when we discovered they were innocent? Please - justify their torture for me.

S.L. Toddard| 5.11.09 @ 11:35AM

"The Democrats control both houses and the presidency. They can write a bill today to declare water boarding is torture and Obama will surely sign it. Why haven't they?"

The same reason they will not prosecute the telecoms or anyone for the illegal warrantless spying on American citizens - because the Democratic party was FULLY COMLICIT, and will be implicated in all the crimes committed by the Bush Administration.

Anonymous| 5.11.09 @ 11:43AM

Harvard Law prof. Dershowitz advocated the Israeli government conducting 'torture', and wrote a book about it. Where's that rat hiding now?

http://www.google.com/search?q=dershowitz+torture

Mayor Koch gave mixed signals.

http://pardonpower.com/2008/03/koch-pardon-my-torture.html
http://archive.newsmax.com/pundits/archives/Edward_I._Koch-archive.shtml

http://www.google.com/search?q=dershowitz+torture+koch

And for the "torture update theme", Michael Jackson's "Torture", sung with the Jacksons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_(The_Jacksons_album)

Finally, a spotlight on Janet Reno. When she burned the Branch Davidians, was that torture? The Constitution commands LIFE, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Sherman? said: War is Hell.
http://www.google.com/search?q="war+is+hell"

L. Ross| 5.11.09 @ 11:46AM

Hey, S.L.
Just thought you should know that even though Capt. Fischer was a good stick (pilot), pathetic stuff like what he did is the reason that people like me and the men and women I work with are all exposed to tough interrogation techniques, so we have some idea of what to expect, and what is expected of us when we are questioned and tortured. I'll tell you one thing, we are NOT expected to roll over and confess to heinous crimes to "get them off my back". I hope that he just didn't know better (SERE training hadn't yet begun). As for waterboarding being illegal, try to keep in mind, our laws serve our society. Protecting our society is more important than obeying every law. I'm not saying we did break laws, by the way, because we get to decide what is torture for ourselves. We are a sovereign country. Ah hell, I don't know why I'm writing to you. You'll never get it.

alberto gorin| 5.11.09 @ 11:47AM

what they are doing.suicide bomps take away your freedom cut hands cut legs wife beating
destroy the west.
if they could evry day take airplain.or use nuclair

than i say go for it it saves American lifes

obama is a dammmmm stupid danger fool
hezbolah torture 2 kidnaped soldiers
not under super vision and careful

water bording ice bording what ever it takes
to get this information out of these basters
we need to win this war

John Navratil| 5.11.09 @ 11:52AM

A bit of nit-picking...
"Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" is from the Declaration of Independence and speaks to their endowment by the Creator. Nothing Constitutional about it.

Aaron Levitt| 5.11.09 @ 11:55AM

Water boarding is torture, plain and simple, and everybody knows it. If Mr. Hyman wants to argue that torture is necessary to preserve national security, then he should come out and do it.

Doorgunner| 5.11.09 @ 12:11PM

"All that is relevant is whether our torturers broke our laws. And it's rather obvious they did. "

Gee, the left hemi-blogsphere is simply afire with
COL H. E. Fischer's exploits today. Quite a bit of direct quoting from the NYT obit. I wonder if the Journo-List is part of the dissemination, or is it just the dailykos, Mr. Toddard?

The coordinated attacks of ants aside, I wonder if Mr. Toddard recognizes, in hindsight, a stunning lack of empathy in his above-quoted words.

John Bibb| 5.11.09 @ 12:18PM

***
Waterboarding was limited necessary abusive treatment--but it was not torture. Watch the BRAVEHEART and PASSION OF THE CHRIST movies to see what the real McCoy looks like. Panties on the head and a few dog bites don't count either.
***
Rocketman
***

John Bibb| 5.11.09 @ 12:19PM

***
Waterboarding was limited necessary abusive treatment--but it was not torture. Watch the BRAVEHEART and PASSION OF THE CHRIST movies to see what the real McCoy looks like. Panties on the head and a few dog bites don't count either.
***
Rocketman
***

BigGovSux| 5.11.09 @ 12:24PM

"One big diff. You knew you were safe. You were uncomfortable, and had to endure pain and whathaveyou, but you knew you were safe in the hands of your fellow soldiers. A PRISONER DOES NOT KNOW THAT. "

Kinda the desired effect, don't you think?

Big J| 5.11.09 @ 12:28PM

"So by your logic the families of people detained and tortured by the US (or killed in bombing attacks by the US) have the moral right to commit terrorist acts against the US. You condone terorism and believe it is morally justified."

Just like a flaming liberal. Take a fact, twist and distort it until it suits your ridiculous outlook, then throw it back into the mix proclaiming "See, I told you so! Na na na na, boo, boo. You condone terrorism! Neocon!"

Unless every reasonable (and I stress reasonable) person in the know is wrong, the waterboarding occurred AFTER the September 11th attacks, and BEFORE the planned attacks in Los Angeles and on the Brooklyn bridge.

Try educating yourself, Toddard: look up the definition of "terrorism", then get back with me. I don't believe exacting revenge for the unprovoked murder or torture of one of my innocent (you know, innocent like Khalid Shaikh Muhammed, that guy that cut off Danny Pearl's head??) family members constitutes promotion of terrorism. Sorry, Toddard, not even close.

You are a

Nevermind, I refuse to stoop to your level. I will keep my compliments on your character to myself. You might take a lesson, chap.

Bottom line is, you can't fix stupid.

There was some story about wrestling with a pig......

Tim| 5.11.09 @ 12:33PM

Get all fired up and indignant about enhanced interrogation if you want. Meanwhile we have our beloved humanitarian President ordering drone attacks that blow Al Queda fighters to bloody chunks of meat in the back country of Pakistan. Do you not weep for them? They never had a chance to surrender, no search warrant was presented.
Well, at least they weren't tortured before they were pulverized, torn limb from limb and burned to ash. Nice and legal.

jason| 5.11.09 @ 12:56PM

this article reveals two things: that republicans are in the sorry position of having to hitch their survival to the rationalization of torture, and that they cannot do so honestly or convincingly.

Grammarian| 5.11.09 @ 1:13PM

What is a "kindler"?

Jason Taylor| 5.11.09 @ 1:29PM

Actually Toddard, "Whether or not good intelligence was gained" is relevant. If so it is "ends justify the means" if not it is gratuituous. The former is at least extenuating circumstance.

In any case has anyone considered the possibility that any information from a terrorist who had been incarcerated for months might be valueless?
The situation has changed and he has been out of the loop.

Finnally why in the world do we make such a bother to take prisoners at all? They simply make themselves into a propaganda front, and it is not clear how much the information is worth it. I suppose we should accept "walk-ins"(though not take them to seriously). And make enough of an incentive to surrender to keep people from fighting to the last. But until they do surrender shouldn't we just concentrate on killing them rather then capturing them? It is not as if they are terribly nice people.

Yes and No| 5.11.09 @ 1:34PM

Listen, I certainly agree with you on your ultimate conclusion (that these techniques aren't "torture"), but you substantially undermine your own credibility through some of the arguments you use and through the tone you strike. I think you're hurting our cause more than helping.

Freya| 5.11.09 @ 1:43PM

There's a legal and moral difference between an enemy on the battlefield and an enemy who has been captured and is therefore out of the fight.

Bill| 5.11.09 @ 1:50PM

Obama and his fellow liberals are cowards. When the next terrorist attack takes place, don't blame the "Intelligence Community," blame Obama and his bleeding liberal terrorist coddlers. They will be the ones that inhibited our ability to prevent the next attack.

Ralph| 5.11.09 @ 1:53PM

So, Obama's moral compass works as follows: "Torture" of captured terrorists is ok, but dismemberment of unborn children (who have done nothing) is ok. There is a special place in hell for those who subscribe to this "moral" view of the world.

S.L. Toddardq| 5.11.09 @ 1:56PM

"Actually Toddard, "Whether or not good intelligence was gained" is relevant. If so it is "ends justify the means" if not it is gratuituous."

Wrong. U.S. law does not recognize "the end" justifying "the means".

argonaut| 5.11.09 @ 2:02PM

Regardless of whether or not we decide these techniques constitute torture, for Mr Hyman to claim they are no worse than run-of-the-mill fraternity hazing or schoolyard games is abhorrent. We're talking about terrible acts here, and institutionalized terrible acts at that. To claim they are anything less shows a complete lack of respect for anyone involved on either side of the issue.

Tim| 5.11.09 @ 2:04PM

Doug Neidermeyer:
And most recently of all, a "Roman Toga Party" was held from which we have received more than two dozen reports of individual acts of perversion SO profound and disgusting that decorum prohibits listing them here.

Doorgunner| 5.11.09 @ 2:04PM

Uh, gee, what about affirmative action?

Doorgunner| 5.11.09 @ 2:06PM

I mean, the law means what an empathetic judge says it means, right?

Doorgunner| 5.11.09 @ 2:10PM

Kidding -I KID- aside, if any Dr. Evil rethuglican types really did intend to employ torture, why on earth would they, or anyone else have it quantified, qualified and documented through
DOJ?

S.L. Toddard| 5.11.09 @ 2:17PM

"As for waterboarding being illegal, try to keep in mind, our laws serve our society. Protecting our society is more important than obeying every law"

What a fascistic, anti-American thing to think. Our laws ARE our Liberties. Our law - our Constitution - is what our Presidents and Congressmen swear to protect and defend first and foremost, because our Constitution is what keeps us a free people. Americans value their liberties over their lives - that's why Patrick Henry said "Give me Liberty or Give Me Death", not "Protect me Daddy and you can trample all over my Liberties/Constitution".

My god, how far have you people been indoctrinated into this totalitarian mindset? How terrified of life are you?

The American people have become e a fat, lazy, chicken-hearted rabble - ready to trade their liberties and the laws that guarantee them for a Daddy figure to coddle them and keep them "safe". How sad. How far we've fallen. The Founders would be mortified. Disgusted. They would DISOWN these "Americans".

Doorgunner| 5.11.09 @ 2:24PM

Otter:

But you can't hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg - isn't this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we're not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America. Gentlemen!

Tim| 5.11.09 @ 2:27PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dean Vernon Wormer: Mr. Cheney: two C's, two D's and an F. That's a 1.2. Congratulations, Cheney. You're at the top of the Delta pledge class. Mr. Rove?
Flounder: Hello!
Dean Vernon Wormer: Zero point two... Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son. Mr. Bush, president of Delta house? One point six; four C's and an F. A fine example you set! Condileeza Rice... HAS no grade point average. All courses incomplete. Mr. Rum - MR. RUMSFIELD... ZERO POINT ZERO.

Doorgunner| 5.11.09 @ 2:31PM

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein:

Yes, I did read something of that incident when I was a student, but you have to remember that a worm... with very few exceptions... is not a human being.

S.L. Toddard, you, YOU, are exceptional!

Yoda| 5.11.09 @ 2:54PM

I believe in torture. And by the TV ratings of "24" so do most Americans. I spent 29 years in military service, and I knew if I was captured in combat I would be tortured. None of our enemies adhere to any "conventions" of decency. War isn't decent, and you can't treat terrorists or combatives with decency. You have to do whatever is required to extract the information, in a timely enough manner. The half-life on tactically relevant information is about two weeks. After that, the captives serve no useful purpose unless you need them for a prisoner exchange.

Marc Jeric| 5.11.09 @ 3:05PM

We have a new intellectual midget here, infecting these conversations by name-calling and bloviating (is this creep Toddard a new Mathews?) Bloviating gas bags! Torture is pulling nails, cutting fingers and balls, striking off heads with machete. Waterboarding is strictly not torture. Those Gitmo guests living without a care in that tropical paradise, studying their personal Kurans, enjoying open air sports, and under the best health care in the world are not victims. My hope that any future terrorist captured would be immediately executed by a bullet in the head, thus depriving the ACLU (aka Anti-American Criminal Liberties Union, formerly the official legal arm of the Communist Party USA) of clients with which to enslave us all to their nazi masters of the far left. Abu Hussein from Kenya, our Community Organizer-in-Chief, is progreesing rapidly to communize this country (Soviet means community organization, like in ACORN brownshirts now in charge of the 2010 census). Talk about "tortured numbers"!

S.L. Toddard| 5.11.09 @ 3:19PM

"Torture is pulling nails, cutting fingers and balls, striking off heads with machete. Waterboarding is strictly not torture. "

Sorry to contradict you, but in the Convention Against Torture, signed by President Reagan, we defined it as:

"Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions"

So, as you can see, using Water Torture to drown someone until they confess is, quite obviously "torture" as per the laws of the United States.

"My hope that any future terrorist captured would be immediately executed by a bullet in the head"

That's wonderful. What about the innocent people we capture? According to "Big J" the families and friends of the innocent people we capture, detain without trial and torture have a moral obligation to seek violent revenge (you would label it "terrorism" because it would be committed by someone other than the U.S.). You believe these innocent people we capture should be murdered out-of-hand without trial, correct?

I find it fascinating how willing the faux-conservatives here are to occupy the same moral lowground as the Soviets, Nazis and terrorists. You know, America was once a place that found torture abhorrent. Torture was for uncivilized peoples - barbarians - people who cowered in ignorance and knew not the Rule of Law...

Oh wait that's us now. Woops!

S.L. Toddard| 5.11.09 @ 3:22PM

"I believe in torture."

Do you believe in lawlessness? Do you reject the Rule of Law, the bedrock of American Liberty and our Constitutional Republic, bequeathed to us by the Founders? Or do you reject all America once stood for? Because if you condone torture, and torture is against the law, then you oppose the Rule of Law - and the idea of America itself - by definition.

Doorgunner| 5.11.09 @ 3:40PM

Maitre D': You're Abe Froman?
Ferris: That's right, I'm Abe Froman.
Maitre D': The Sausage King of Chicago?
Ferris: [caught off-guard] ... Uh yeah, that's me.
Maitre D': Look, I'm very busy. Why don't you take the kids and go back to the clubhouse?
Ferris: Are you suggesting that I'm not who I say I am?
Maitre D': I'm suggesting that you leave before I have to get snooty.
Ferris: Snooty?
Maitre D': Snotty.
Ferris: Snotty?

Doorgunner| 5.11.09 @ 3:51PM

Godfrey: Very well. You belong to that unfortunate category that I would call the "Park Avenue brat". A spoiled child who's grown up in ease and luxury... who's always had her own way... and who's misdirected energies are so childish that they hardly deserve the comment, even of a butler on his off Thursday.

HugoHarp| 5.11.09 @ 4:43PM

Obama is upset by the "torture" of terrorists but is not bothered by the impaling of a human brain during a partial-birth abortion? This man has no soul.

DudeWheresMyWaterboard| 5.11.09 @ 4:47PM

Maybe the CIA should have let the terrorists be licked by kittens until they spilled the beans. Perhaps forcing them to watch the movie "Showgirls" repeatedly until they couldn't take it any more would have been acceptable. If it was up to the libbies we would fight our wars with nerf guns and harsh language (but not too harsh because that's just mean). After the terrorists slam dunked the ally-oop pass from the Clinton administration on 9/11, GW put the clamps down on terrorist activities and we were safe thereafter. Let's just wait and see if they release the memos of the intelligence they got from their "torture" and see if one of you might have been saved because of it. When the enemy is slitting innocent throats and flying planes in to buildings killing thousands do we really need to debate about the moral highground? If waterboarding helps make this country safe then give me the hose and I'll do it myself.

Ferguson Braithwaite| 5.11.09 @ 4:48PM

Thankfully we still have free speech. But beware, the fairness doctrine is looming round the corner. I found out great info at: freedomtolisten.org

Phoenix| 5.11.09 @ 4:50PM

No one believes that torture, under any circumstances, is positive. Contextual differences aside, the maltreatment of any human being is an offense to our Judeo-Christian values. However, the question is still pertinent and still fraught with irony: is torture ('torture') necessary for the continuation of these values, the practice of which, is the very foundation of the United States?
We are at the crux of that question, and at the locus of a Gordian knot.
Do we torture to protect our values and beliefs?
Do we surrender these values and beliefs to a determined and fanatical foe unfamiliar with Christian angst?Do we submit?
The definition of a good person, as well as a 'good' nation, is one whom constantly finds things about themselves they don't like and need to improve.
The definition of a 'evil' person, or nation for that matter, is one whom finds nothing about themselves they don't love.
We face such a foe.
And sometimes, good people must do 'bad' things to survive.
We must do what we have to do, though we may not like it.

ben| 5.11.09 @ 5:49PM

When we write a law we define actions as either legal or illegal. Actions that are defined as illegal by said law, were not and cannot be considered illegal before the passing of the law. We as a society, a culture, and a soverign state get to define actions as legal or illiegal based on societal, cultural values and beliefs.
We, along with the rest of the world have taken upon ourselves the responsibility to define the appalling actions associated with warfare - an equally appalling action - in order to make warfare less brutal and inhumane. Through debate and compromise between morality and reality we have come up with a definition of what constitutes torture. It is our elected representatives, those we hire to write laws, that defined torture as an act that inflicts major pain andor suffering with the specific intent to inflict major pain and/or suffering. The fact that we had 20 years of data and evidence pertaining to the effects (painful and otherwise) of being waterboarded, the fact that medical doctors(physical and Psychological) had oversight and the authority to halt waterboarding at any time and to administer medical aide if required, and the fact that we had explicitly written rules of conduct to ensure the safe application of waterboarding prooves without a doubt that our use of waterboarding as an interrogation technique was not ordered with the malicious intent to cause pain and suffering and is thus cannot be defined legally or otherwise as torture.

It's just like the speed limit on your street. Until we write a law restricting the driving speed on the street any speed that can be achieved may be achieved legally. Once we define the speed limit as law then exceeding that speed is illegal. Just because the old guy a couple doors down thinks you're driving too fast, doesn't mean that you are, no matter how loud he cries about it, or which way he twists the story around. He does not have the right to prosecute you simply because he thinks 10 mph is fast enough if the law allows you to drive 25 mph.

Michael L. Hauschild| 5.11.09 @ 5:52PM

There, now doesn’t everyone feel better having spewed. Now here are the facts. If a combatant is captured that knows of an immanent attack he will be tortured, chemically, medically, physically and psychologically until he divulges everything he knows. The reason this will happen has nothing to do with law, has nothing to do with decency, has nothing to do with religious conviction; it will happen because some commanding officer will say, “Someone is going to hang for this, do I have any volunteers?” Then and as always in the history of our great nation someone will step forward and risk what is necessary, be it life, freedom, or well being, to save his or her fellow soldiers or citizens.
You can bank on it.

Liberal Chris| 5.11.09 @ 5:55PM

Anyone who argues that waterboarding isn't torture without even confronting the fact that we have prosecuted Japanese officers and american sheriffs for waterboarding is, like John Yoo and Jay Bybee, full of shit.

BigGovSux| 5.11.09 @ 6:12PM

As George Orwell once said: "People sleep peacably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf. "

Thank God for our service men and women. And....

May the Left in this country someday "get it"

John Navratil| 5.11.09 @ 6:34PM

Liberal Chris - yes we did prosecute a sheriff for water boarding. People with a KLOL bumper sticker who drove through a small East Texas town shouldn't be compared with KSM and actually have rights to due process that KSM did and does not. The Japanese were not prosecuted for scaring the bejeesus out of prisoners by pouring water over their heads in the presence of a medical doctor, but my forcing water into their stomachs until the cells exploded, or by using salt water to kill them, or filling their stomachs with dry rice and then forcing water in to make their intestines explode. In all cases water was involved. Do you really thing the treatment was comparable?

Rainboskies| 5.11.09 @ 6:52PM

Okay, stop torture and enhanced interrogation; shoot to kill.

Big J| 5.11.09 @ 7:02PM

Some posting above absolutely refuse to address issues that they cannot explain. Not a problem. It is every man's prerogative to attend to facts or not. That's what makes the world go round. The really irritating part is when the name-calling and cussing starts. That's just plain ignorant. When I was growing up my Dad said that a man's words showed his intelligence, his deed showed his character. Toddard has apparently held both up for all to see today. I truly feel sorry for his family, as I wouldn't feel very safe relying on his protection were a home invasion to take place, but I digress....

I would like to add one more thing:

Thank God for every member of our armed forces brave enough to risk life and limb for my freedom and safety, and that of others around the world. They don't even know me, yet they risk everything for me. They are all truly patriots!

Thank God that George Bush made tough decisions for the last 8 years that kept me and my family safe from the atrocities that occurred on September 11, 2001. A task that Clinton (and many others posting here) was just not up to. I certainly hope the current administration takes the task as seriously.

Finally, I thank God for the wonderful country in which we reside. Were it not for the blood of patriots, things would be very different, indeed. Free speech, the ability to protect and defend ourselves under the second amendment, and many, many other rights and privileges that some take for granted would have no place in a country run by tyrants.

Toddard, you obviously do not want to concern yourself with facts. Feel free to believe that the CIA is full of a bunch of lawless torturing crackpots if you will. I honestly hope that you don't have to experience firsthand the repercussions of inaction, as many in New York did that fateful day.

I hope none of us do.

I'm out!

S.L. Toddard| 5.11.09 @ 7:03PM

"However, the question is still pertinent and still fraught with irony: is torture ('torture') necessary for the continuation of these values, the practice of which, is the very foundation of the United States?"

Of course it's not. What an absurd notion. We had no such torture regime when we faced the *actual* existential threat of the Soviet Union, who had thousands of ICBM's pointed at our cities and could have ended our people and culture completely. Compared to the USSR, the terrorists qualify - maybe - as a minor, negligable annoyance. We face no existential threat from terrorists - the idea is ludicrous on its face, laughable, the stuff of sick paranoid minds. There is some danger - we deal with it in the way we always have: within the bounds of the law (which give ample leeway to those charged with the task) and in the spirit of American tradition. And that's because as Americans - if there are any left - we hold our liberties and the Constitution that is their foundation dearer than paltry, temporary "safety". We recognize that *freedom isn't safe*, and that *absolute* security can come only with absolute tyranny, which we - as a people - reject.

Also, keep in mind that it is categorically not possible to both torture and retain our values and civilization - torture is a negation of American values and the hallmark of un-civilization. It's like asking "Do we need to eradicate congress and the judiciary, abolish the Bill of Rights, crown our president and invest him with omnipotence as Emperor to retain our values?" To ask the question is to answer it.

S.L. Toddard| 5.11.09 @ 7:08PM

"prooves without a doubt that our use of waterboarding as an interrogation technique was not ordered with the malicious intent to cause pain and suffering"

How odd. You just wrote something that you don't actually believe. What does that feel like? You can read and write, so you obviously have the capacity to understand that the entire point of water-torture is to cause pain and suffering to the point where the tortured person can no longer bear it and will tell the torturer what they want to know. If you don't understand that then you don't understand the very essence of the subject. It's inconceivable that you don't grasp that, so how could you in good conscience pretend otherwise?

Tom Paine| 5.11.09 @ 7:15PM

Mr Hyman's article, above, is filled with poor reasoning and in general informed by a deeply impoverished moral imagination.

Imagine a man, charged with beating a woman, who stands before a judge and says: "I may have beaten her, your honor, but it's not as though I raped her!"

While it is true that there have been no allegations that agents of our government drilled teeth or pulled fingernails from prisoners, many of the "enhanced techniques" clearly constitute torture -- including the water-torture technique that has come to be known -- euphemistically -- as "water boarding."

The world recognizes water-torture for what it is, as does United States law. This is why the CIA in an unprecented move destroyed over 80 videotapes recording the water-boarding of (at least) 1 prisoner. This is also why the CIA was ordered to stop water-boarding. (After all, if it's so effective, why did they only water-board 3 people? In fact, why don't we water-board all criminals, to get the names of other criminals?)

The ease with which conservatives eagerly give away a tradition of jurisprudence and American values because they are "afraid" (or, to use Rice's word, "terrified") speaks poorly of their courage, but it doesn't change the underlying principle: torture is wrong and will not be tolerated in this country.

We cannot defeat terrorists by terrorizing people. We cannot defeat Al Quaeda by acting like Al Quaeda.

S.L. Toddard| 5.11.09 @ 7:15PM

"Some posting above absolutely refuse to address issues that they cannot explain"

Such as?

"Thank God for every member of our armed forces brave enough to risk life and limb for my freedom and safety, and that of others around the world. They don't even know me, yet they risk everything for me. They are all truly patriots!"

Aw! So sweet.

"Thank God that George Bush made tough decisions for the last 8 years that kept me and my family safe from the atrocities that occurred on September 11, 2001."

Yeah, but don't forget to blame him for his colossal failure on September 11th, when his incompetence led to the deaths of thousands of American citizens. Oh and don't forget, also, to blame him for (and this is the most generous interpretation of events possible) misreading faulty intelligence and sending thousands of American soldiers to die in the Iraqi desert. Through his incompetence and stupidity, George W. Bush has either allowed or directly caused the deaths of thousands and thousands of Americans. And that's not to mention the hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians he's had blown apart, shot dead and burned alive in their homes etc. It's fine to give credit where credit is due, but don't forget about the American blood on his hands due to his failure to protect America (the worst such failure by any president in American history) and then his own incompetence, sending thousands of American soldiers to die in a war that didn't need to be fought.

I mean, fair is fair, right?

Teleprompter Messiah| 5.11.09 @ 7:39PM

Toddard:

Please volunteer to go to the uplands of Pakistan and educate the locals about our laws, moral standing and how they are a negligble threat to us.

Please go to Obama's cave and tell him this was all just some big misunderstanding and we are sorry for provoking him into murdering thousands of our citizens.

As they sharpen the dull knife to cut off your head, remind them of American humanity and the Geneva Convention.

S.L. Toddard| 5.11.09 @ 7:43PM

"The ease with which conservatives eagerly give away a tradition of jurisprudence and American values because they are "afraid" (or, to use Rice's word, "terrified") speaks poorly of their courage, but it doesn't change the underlying principle: torture is wrong and will not be tolerated in this country."

Well said, my good man. The neoconservatives here (they are quite obviously not *conservatives*, as I myself am) do not actually understand what "conservative" means. They believe - honestly - that it means something like "low taxes, anti-abortion, pro-gun, pro-war, anti-terrorist". Oh, and "pro-flag" or something. They love flags. What they don't understand is that "conservative" philosophy is rooted in the root of the word itself - it is a philosophy, or a disposition, wherein the adherent recognizes the value of, and seeks *to conserve*, the 'permanent things' - our tradition, or way of life, our laws, our liberties. They do not understand that these things are intertwined. That to reject our laws is to lose our liberties, that to lose our liberties is to jeopardize our way of life. They believe "low taxes" is conservative, which is why they see no problem with keeping taxes low while spending goes through the roof - these people actually think George W Bush and Ronald Reagan were "conservatives". A Conservative prizes self reliance, and recognizes the absurd folly of low taxes in concert with high spending. A conservative will lower taxes while cutting spending and shrinking the size of the federal government - and ask yourself, what elected Republican ever cut spending, or shrunk the size of the federal government? But if spending, if the size and scope of the federal government, is going to increase astronomically - as it did under Big Government Republicans like Reagan and Bush - then taxes must match that, because a Conservative knows that as bad as it reflects upon a man to live on the dole, on someone else's dime, it is far WORSE for his COUNTRY to do so. And so, through their faulty understanding of conservatism they have left us with a multi-trillion dollar debt and called it "conservatism". They have failed to conserve America's self reliance - our country is a recipient of Chinese welfare. They have failed to conserve our Liberties: the "unitary executive" is a radical abomination and an affront to our traditional checks against tyranny, they have instituted KGB/Stazi-esque secret programs to eavesdrop on the phone calls of American citizens. They have failed to conserve our security: decades of talk about immigration and they refuse to seal our borders, they have our army flung all across the globe bogged down in unnecessary wars. They have failed to conserve the Rule of Law: the bedrock of our way of life has been forsaken and now "the ends justify the means", elites who break our most serious laws are immunized or simply excused away, wars are launched without declarations, the 10th Amendment is treated as though it does not exist, and the Constitution is a quaint relic, a "living document" to be treated as though it has no meaning. And worst of all in a way, they have failed and failed miserably to conserve our country's honor: once the light of the world, a place where Law was King, and where all men stood equal before it, now we capture people from their homes - often innocent people , from airports, from places far from any battlefield and whisk them away to secret gulags to be caged and brutalized with no chance to defend their innocence, with no appeals to justice, we launch aggressive wars against pretend-enemies and scoff at the hundreds of thousands we leave dead, we spy on and imprison journalists, we propagandize our media, and no one - least of all the readers of AmSpec - cares.

And why? Because they are not conservatives, they are radicals. They seek to radically change our way of life, our laws, our presidency. And it's all because they are afraid. The country that once looked at the Soviet Union, took in their vast arsenal of nuclear weaponry, spit in their eye and called their bluff - that same country now cowers in the dark over a rabble of homeless cave-dwellers, scattered around the middle east, and their chicken-hearted terror is so great they are willing - eager, even - to fork over their ancient liberties to the first huckster who promises them the empty, soul-killing "security" of totalitarianism.

We've become a pathetic, weak people, and we're getting what we deserve, to be frank.

I.S. Tarded| 5.11.09 @ 7:54PM

Ty Webb: Let me tell you a little story? I once knew a guy who could have been a great golfer, could have gone pro, all he needed was a little time and practice. Decided to go to college instead. Went for four years, did pretty well. At the end of his four years, his last semester he was kicked out... You know what for? He was night putting, just putting at night with the fifteen-year-old daughter of the Dean... You know who that guy was Danny?
Danny Noonan: No.
Ty Webb: Take one good guess.
Danny Noonan: Bob Hope?
Ty Webb: Ha ha... No, that guy was Mitch Comstein, my roommate. He was a good guy

E.S. Tarded| 5.11.09 @ 7:56PM

In a little honky-tonky village in Texas
There's a guy who plays the best piano by far
He can play piano any way that you like it
But the way he likes to play is eight to the bar
When he plays, it's a ball
He's the daddy of them all

The people gather around when he gets on the stand
Then when he plays, he gets a hand
The rhythm he beats puts the cats in a trance
Nobody there bothers to dance
But when he plays with the bass and guitar
They holler out, "Beat me Daddy, eight to the bar"

A-plink, a-plank, a-plink plank, plink plank
A-plunkin' on the keys
A-riff, a-raff, a-riff raff, riff raff
A-riffin' out with ease
And when he plays with the bass and guitar
They holler out, "Beat me Daddy, eight to the bar"

He plays a boogie, he plays eight to the bar
A boogie-woogie, that is the way he likes to play on his piano
And we all know
That when he plays he puts them all in a trance
The cats all holler "Hooray"
You'll hear them say, "Beat me Daddy, eight to the bar"

It 'Paines" Me To Be So Tarded| 5.11.09 @ 8:00PM

Carl Spackler: (standing in an ornamental flowerbed] What an incredible Cinderella story! This unknown, comes out of nowhere, to lead the pack at Augusta. He's at the final hole. He's about 455 yards away, he's gonna hit about a 2-iron, I think. [swings, pulverizes a flower] Oh, he got all of that. The crowd is standing on its feet here at Augusta. The normally reserved crowd is going wild... [pauses] for this young Cinderella who's come out of nowhere. He's got about 350 yards left, he's going to hit about a 5-iron, it looks like, don't you think? He's got a beautiful backswing... [swings, pulverizes another flower] that's- oh, he got all of that one! He's gotta be pleased with that! The crowd is just on its feet here. He's a Cinderella boy. Tears in his eyes, I guess, as he lines up this last shot. He's got about 195 yards left, and he's got a, looks like he's got about an 8-iron. This crowd has gone deadly silent... Cinderella story, out of nowhere, former greenskeeper, now about to become the Masters champion. [swings, pulverizes yet another flower] It looks like a mirac- it's in the hole! It's in the hole!

Tom Paine| 5.11.09 @ 8:02PM

It's too bad their isn't more serious commentary, especially given the subject.

S.L. Toddard| 5.11.09 @ 8:04PM

"Please volunteer to go to the uplands of Pakistan and educate the locals about our laws, moral standing and how they are a negligble threat to us."

Wouldn't it make more sense to remind the locals here about them first? I think it would be wise to civilize the barbarians here who would turn America into a Baathist regime before travelling abroad to do the same. In fact, were we to cease sending our soldiers abroad, and cease meddling in the affairs of other peoples (cease arming them, cease propping up oppressive dictators and regimes, cease funding one enemy after another, cease nation-building, cease foreign-aid, pull out of the U.N. etc) and instead lock down and guard our own borders I think we'd see a remarkable and positive change in that regard. Don't forget, eight years of a Republican presidency and ten (I think) of a Republican congress and what was done to secure our border? Nothing. How much did they decrease spending? They didn't - in fact they spent more than the preceding Democratic president/congress by an astronomical amount. How much power did they rightfully return to the states as per States Rights as defined in the 10th Amendment? None - they furthered the disempowerment of the states to the benefit of the central government. How much did they decrease the budget for unconstitutional federal social programs? They didn't - they passed massive new Great Society-style social programs like the Medicare/Medicaid and No Child Left Behind scams.

You people more or less voted for LBJ (a free-spending, Great Society Big Government hawk who launched an unnecessary war and was too chicken to pull out, just like "W") and then re-elected him, all the while under the delusion that both you and he were (ahem) "conservative" because he affected a phony southern twang (the Bushes are blueblood Yankees) and wore a cowboy hat.

Frankly I'm embarrassed to be your countryman. At least the liberals KNEW they were voting for a big government liberal - it's what they wanted! You people voted for one, got one, and *still* don't know it.

Rectal Paine| 5.11.09 @ 8:04PM

Bandit: Before I tell you where I am, Sheriff, there's just one thing I wanna say. You must be part coon dog, 'cause I've been chased by the best of them, and son, you make 'em look like they're all runnin' in slow motion. I just wanna say that.
Buford T. Justice: Well, thank you, Mr. Bandit. And as the pursuer, may I say you're the goddamnedest pursuee I've ever pursued. Now that the mutual bullshit is over, WHERE ARE YOU, YOU SOMBITCH?

Pained Expression| 5.11.09 @ 8:09PM

He was raised in Midland/Odessa, the accent is legit.

Painefully Shy & Tarded| 5.11.09 @ 8:13PM

"Frankly I'm embarrassed to be your countryman. At least the liberals KNEW they were voting for a big government liberal - it's what they wanted! You people voted for one, got one, and *still* don't know it. "

Lookee here, scalawag. Jes' what thuh heck in all tarnation does yore light in the ass mean by "You people"? If yore embarrassed by yore surroundings, well, mosey on home. And take your purse.

S.L. Toddard| 5.11.09 @ 8:15PM

"It's too bad their isn't more serious commentary, especially given the subject."

If you wanted serious commentary you shouldn't have come to this comedy site. Remember, this is the magazine that argues that illegal wiretapping and torture should be excused, and then pleads "How about a little empathy for the Constitution and the rule of law?" It's brilliant satire, if you think about it.

S.L. Toddard| 5.11.09 @ 8:16PM

"Rectal Paine" and "Painefully Shy & Tarded" - against my better judgement you're actually making me laugh over here.

Stop it - you are enemies of conservatism and the American way of life and I cannot in good conscience continue to guffaw at your little jokes.

TIMMEHH Paine is not Tarded| 5.11.09 @ 8:25PM

Annie Hall: Sometimes I ask myself how I'd stand up under torture.
Alvy Singer: You? You kiddin'? If the Gestapo would take away your Bloomingdale's charge card, you'd tell 'em everything.

Senor Dolor y El Tardo| 5.11.09 @ 8:29PM

Nacho: Those guys were a couple of wussies, eh?
Esqueleto: They scalped my hairs, okay? I look hideous. And you gave them permission to hurt me like this.

Teleprompter Messiah| 5.11.09 @ 8:33PM

Toddard:

When were you chosen as head of the Depository of Faith that you get to decide who is and is not conservative? I must have missed that conclave.

Most of the Leftists who comment here throw around the word "torture" with a casualness that detroys their point. You are falling into the same trap.

Torture has a definition in American law. That, not what you want it to mean, is the demarcation line for what is and is not criminal.

Thom| 5.11.09 @ 8:37PM

S.L. Toddard, shooting wars aren't won by lawyer arguments. Waterboarding does none of the things you say Reagan signed an agreement on. Tens of thousand of our own service personnel are subjected to this same procedure as training to harden them to the same procedure by those that capture them and don't happen to just cut off their heads first. You really don't know what you are talking about.

If someone takes one of your children or someone you really care about and buries them and you have say 12 hours to get their location from a suspect that has confessed your moral high ground might undergo a bit of a test that you aren’t really as well prepared for as you think. Applying Fourth amendment type protections to illegal enemy combatants is a suicide pack. You really don't know what you are talking about. Far worse than this has occurred in every war we’ve fought and we’ve survived as a Nation of Laws without worrying about a non evasive procedure like waterboarding while it is perfectly legal to shoot an unarmed POW trying to escape. What would you have us do if there were a prison breaks at Gitmo? Let them go? These aren’t accused defendants under our Civil laws and protections. They are POWs and illegal ones at that. Try reading the Geneva accords on illegal combats and their actions and remedies.

A Painefully Swollen Toddard| 5.11.09 @ 8:37PM

Major Strasser: You give him credit for too much cleverness. My impression was that he's just another blundering American.
Captain Renault: We musn't underestimate "American blundering". I was with them when they "blundered" into Berlin in 1918.

S.L. Toddard| 5.11.09 @ 8:46PM

"Torture has a definition in American law. That, not what you want it to mean, is the demarcation line for what is and is not criminal."

Indeed, I have cited that definition many times, including in this very comments section. In the Convention Against Torture, signed by President Reagan, we defined it as:

"Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions"

Clearly water-torture fits this description.

S.L. Toddard| 5.11.09 @ 8:50PM

"If someone takes one of your children or someone you really care about and buries them and you have say 12 hours to get their location from a suspect that has confessed your moral high ground might undergo a bit of a test that you aren’t really as well prepared for as you think."

Sorry - ticking-time-bomb scenarios are irrelevant. Just as what-if-the-tooth-fairy-smuggled-a-dirty-bomb-into-Candyland scenarios are, and for the exact same reason.

"Applying Fourth amendment type protections to illegal enemy combatants is a suicide pack."

Oh dear. You must have heard that term on talk radio dozens of times but never read it in print. It's "suicide pact", friend. Oof.

Osamas Pajamas| 5.11.09 @ 8:58PM

Waterboard OhBummer.

SLow, Tarded Chidwen At Pway| 5.11.09 @ 9:01PM

Major T. J. "King" Kong: Well, boys, I reckon this is it - nuclear combat toe to toe with the Roosskies. Now look, boys, I ain't much of a hand at makin' speeches, but I got a pretty fair idea that something doggone important is goin' on back there. And I got a fair idea the kinda personal emotions that some of you fellas may be thinkin'. Heck, I reckon you wouldn't even be human bein's if you didn't have some pretty strong personal feelin's about nuclear combat. I want you to remember one thing, the folks back home is a-countin' on you and by golly, we ain't about to let 'em down. I tell you something else, if this thing turns out to be half as important as I figure it just might be, I'd say that you're all in line for some important promotions and personal citations when this thing's over with. That goes for ever' last one of you regardless of your race, color or your creed. Now let's get this thing on the hump - we got some flyin' to do.

S.L. Toddard| 5.11.09 @ 9:02PM

"When were you chosen as head of the Depository of Faith that you get to decide who is and is not conservative? I must have missed that conclave."

Perhaps because it was Conservatives Only. And I don't "decide" who is Conservative, but I can recognize who isn't.

A conservative is one who knows what is great about his people and country and seeks to Conserve it, and who therefore believes change should happen slowly, carefully and organically, from the bottom-up, and not be implemented from the top-down according to abstract theory. A conservative believes in the preservation and defense of the Constitution as a bulwark against tyranny, and who recognizes - as the Founders did - that the greatest threat of tyranny comes from one's own government. A conservative believes in States Rights and a small, un-intrusive federal government - period, as this is the best method to ensure Liberty by keeping power closest to the people. A conservative does not ever vote for a politician who believes or acts otherwise. A conservative believes in subsidiarity, in localism and regionalism. A conservative believes in self sufficiency, and believes that federal social programs are dangerous, and *knows* that they are un-Constitutional, and that they destroy self-sufficiency and promote sloth and dependence. These things are all integral to what it means to be a conservative. Any politician who has failed to use his power to promote these ideas is not a conservative. Any person who continues to support that politician once that is made plain is not a conservative.

John McCain is not a conservative. John McCain's supporters were not conservative. George W. Bush is not a conservative. George W. Bush's supporters were not conservative. One need not explain why... to a conservative.

My Angry Elephant| 5.11.09 @ 9:10PM

While it is gratifying to finally hear the Bush people defend themselves after years of turning the other cheek, it is also important to consider Cheney’s motivation here. He most certainly does have further political ambitions, so he is not doing this to score points. He has accepted that the MSM and the rest of The Left hate his guts, so he is not trying to change that. He already has all the money he could possibly need in this lifetime, so he’s not trying to set up a lucrative book deal. So why continue to sound the alarm? I know The Left will have all kinds of snide comments on this, but what if he’s doing it simply because he loves this country and does not want to see it hurt again? Is it possible that these comments are fueled by nothing more than, gulp, honest patriotism? visit myangryelephant.com for more

Me| 5.11.09 @ 9:38PM

Gee, I sure hope Hyman wins the high school debate. Real rubbish here.

So let me get this straight -- these techniques are equivalent to kiddie games and college pranks, yet they are used by our armed forces for survival training if captured by nasty enemy regimes. Silly.

He also neglected to mention sleep deprivation and the cold cell and water dousing routine (a favorite of many African countries). Reportedly (at least) three captives have died from these harmless techniques.

Thom| 5.11.09 @ 9:41PM

S.L. Toddard, tens of thousands of our own people have undergone the procedure and say it is not torture.....but it is effective combined with outer measures. Have you ever been waterboarded? If not what makes your opinion have standing over the tens of thousands of our own military personnel that have had this procedure? You didn't answer the question, what would you be willing to do to get information to save your loved ones lives? Platitudes don't get results nor save lives. Put you in a cage with one of these people and a knife between you and you wouldn't last 60 seconds. By your standards there is no point in defending ourselves at all less we violate one of our cherished what “moral values”? Honor? War by its nature is outside our narrowly defined sense of morality. It is what it is and those that have fought it know from where I speak. Step up to the plate Todd, tell us how far you would go to defend your loved ones. Be explicit, spell out in legalize for us. 5 of the scum of the earth have your wife and two children in front of you, two having their way with your wife while one each does that same to your children and one with a knife stands between you and them. You have an illegal gun because you live in Washington DC. Spell it out Todd, show us the depths of your hypocrisy. This scenario is SOP in places like Kosovo.

cg| 5.11.09 @ 9:49PM

Good for Mr. Hyman. The fact is this is a political witch hunt designed to try and destroy opposition to the Democrats. Everything Obama and his cronies onthe Hill do is aimed at destroying the two party system.
So, Barack...when will mere criticism of your policies become a crime?
That idiot Jeanine Garafolo says criticism of Obama "must be racism." Genius that she is.
Now another genius, Wanda Sykes, says that since Rush Limbaugh wants Obama to fail, he's just like Osama bin Laden.
Liberals - get over your PC world. What we're dealing with here is real and deadly and not part of some classroom lesson. Let those who know how to defend this nation do so. If you don't like it, go someplace else.

Curtis Rasmussen| 5.11.09 @ 9:59PM

Hey Tom Pain(e):

You're right about serious commentary. If you leave now, TAS can get back to it.

I don't mean this to be an insult against another esteemed American such as yourself. I know that we can find some middle ground to work out our differences. Here's a suggestion, think about it, sleep on it, read a good book, and and come back when you feel the time is right. All of TAS will be waiting.

JT in SC| 5.11.09 @ 10:19PM

These were not Boy Scouts we are talking about...these were nasty characters and if it saved even ONE American life from being taken in the name of "islamic jihad"... so be it.

It is US against THEM and anybody who cannot see that after decades upon decades of violence all in the name of their "religion of peace".... I am frankly amazed that so much restraint was shown by our intel departments.

In little more than 100 Days....the annointed one has shown that he and his tag alongs are weak, inept and not worthy to lead this nation and completely incapable of DEFENDING the Republic and respecting our Constitution. They are great at apologizing for us...liberal wimps!

I can hardly wait until 2012.... the one term wonder will go back to Chicago...and I can only hope that we get a real leader....who by the way...can PROVE where he was born...beyond a shadow of doubt.

Jim| 5.11.09 @ 10:24PM

Sorry Toddard but I went to SERE school and was an instructor, I also pulled 19 months in Vietnam. What we are doing isn't torture. I notice that in your world beheading is ok as long as a muslim does it.
I have seen cowards like you before, you spout liberal garbage but are the first one to run and beg protection or turn in your own family to save your own sorry ass.
Where were you when we found the village chief hanging upside down with his throat slit or the 14 year girl beaten and raped because she told the GIs she thought she saw some VC in bush the day before. Ever seen anyone with their feet slice opean and forced to walk?
You are a cowardly idiot!

ds80| 5.11.09 @ 10:29PM

What really galls the Left is that Bush and Cheney kept them safe for 8 years.

Yep. That they rightfully deserve credit for actually performing their primary Constitutional duty is a constant burr under the Liberal saddle.

Which goes a long way towards explaining why the Left just can't let go of Bush/Cheney.

C'mon, children, grow up I mean, how often do you hear the Right talking about Bill Clinton anymore? Hmmm?

Tom Paine| 5.11.09 @ 11:03PM

ds80 --

There's just no evidence that Bush and Cheney "kept us safe."

Think about it: there was never a terrorist attack remotely like 9.11 on American soil before 9.11. In fact, there was never an attack like 9.11 anywhere in the world before 9.11.

To argue that Bush and Cheney "kept us safe" is to ignore the decades before 9.11 when we were safe from such attack.

Al Quaeda is very dangerous, and it would be foolish to underestimate them -- as both Clinton and George Bush did before 9.11.

However, their resources were evidently fewer than we feared, and it seems like -- whether by design or not -- Iraq really did absorb some of their energies.

Be that as it may, there is just no evidence -- none whatsoever -- that tormenting Arabs in dungeons did anything but debase our agents and soldiers and piss off the rest of the world.

I can't count anymore how many military people and intelligence agents have come forward to speak against water-torture and similar techniques. It's a done deal, and you Cheney types -- we have a name for you: you're dead-enders.

Tom Paine| 5.11.09 @ 11:09PM

Jim --

Word to the wise: what rhetoricians call the "ethical appeal," i.e. appealing to your audience on the basis of your character, qualifications, history, etc., is not an affective tactic on anonymous websites.

Frankly, I believe you when you say you were a soldier. (Why not?) I'm also grateful for your service.

But it doesn't make your argument any more persuasive. People sign on here all the time claiming military experience; some are clearly honest, others I'm not so sure.

Now, "torture" is not defined relatively. That is, we don't define something as torture simply because it's "as bad" as -- say -- pulling out someone's toe-nails. There are fairly clear guidelines, internationally accepted, which are defined in treaties to which the United States is a signatory.

We gave our word, Jim. That's it. We promised. This country does not go back on promises. It doesn't matter how pissed off or scared a bunch of Glenn Beck fans are.

It's when we're scared that we adhere most closely to our highest ideals. That's why we get to call ourselves the good guys. Otherwise, we're just the ones with most guns.

Tom Paine| 5.11.09 @ 11:20PM

Attributing false causes is a common logical error.

We have not been attacked since 9.11.

Bush was president for seven years after 9.11.

Therefore, Bush kept us safe for those seven years.

This is not in the least logical. It does SEEM logical. It has the feel of a logical argument, but there are a million possible explanations for why haven't been hit since 9.11.

It is human nature to seek reasons and explanations for things -- especially those things that frighten us. And we'd love to believe that terrorism was preventable if only we had the will to go on the "dark side" and do dirty things to Arabs in bad places. But no matter how bad we get, where they're coming from things are worse: we can't be more atrocious than they already are. The moral high-ground is the way to defeat terrorism. I'm 100% certain of it, and I've not heard anyone who sounded like he knew what he was talking about that would disagree.

Jeff Nordlander| 5.12.09 @ 12:11AM

Unfortunately for the right, who for some unknown reason feel the need to defend torture, most seasoned interrogators agree that persuasion not coercion is the most effective tool for extracting information. The SERE training that some of you seem so keen on is expressly administered to help captured American soldiers resist TORTURE and avoid giving up valuable information. As was the case in Vietnam, eventually people will say anything to make the pain stop.

Phoenix| 5.12.09 @ 1:12AM

To say that any act committed by US troops or personnel negates the very essence of American, reveals an altogether romantic image of America as being lilacs and roses and home of the pure in heart. Both 'Tom Paine' (surely a misnomer) and S. L. Stoddard seem ignorant of the facts: the U.S. was attacked on 9/11. The attack was unprovoked, with murderous intent, and thousands of Americans died. The previous administration did nothing-except pander and embolden those whom would destroy us. Those are the facts.
The history is worse: the United States has done more for the Muslim world than any nation on earth. We funded the Afghanistan victory against the Russians. We entered the Bosnia/Serbian (in fact we are still sending troops there) on the side of the islamic Republic of Bosnia. We freed the Iraqi people from a despot that killed over a million of his own countrymen.
We are a nation-we should start acting like it instead of name-calling, temper tantrums and idiocy.

KnowThyself| 5.12.09 @ 1:33AM

S.L. Toddard - Several times you have cited the definition of torture (i.e., "severe pain and suffering") and have followed this by some variant of "waterboarding clearly fits this definition." I read the same definition, and come to the conclusion that waterboarding (at least as far as its practice is described in the so-called "torture memos") does not meet that definition. You'll have to take my word that I'm a sincere and thoughtful person when I ask: what specific aspects of waterboarding, as this term is qualified above, constitute "severe pain" or "severe suffering"? From what I can tell, there isn't much physical pain involved (certainly less than I've suffered in certain trips to the dentist), since no water enters the subject's body, so it seems to boil down to the psychological fear of drowning. The question then becomes: "does causing a person to fear that he is in danger of drowning, in the manner specified in the 'torture memoranda,' constitute 'torture' under the CAT?" I look forward to your considered opinion.

American patriot| 5.12.09 @ 1:36AM

Obama announced his administration would not prosecute CIA officers who used the tactics, but he has left open the possibility of punishing those behind the memos including senior Bush Administration officials.

Any one who agrees with torture is a sick fuck.

Eric Cartman| 5.12.09 @ 1:50AM

Torture doesn’t work? As John McCain if torture works. And what we did to those scumbags wasn’t torture. As for you limp-wrist, Leftist hippie aholes who equate caterpillars and a little H2O with torture, we will all know whose asses to kick when we get attacked again

Big J| 5.12.09 @ 4:34AM

One would be a lot more successful getting one's point through to a brick wall than to Toddard or Paine. I give.

Why don't you two cruise on over to the Kos or HufPo site where all the serious Kool-Aide drinkers reside?

S.L. Toddard| 5.12.09 @ 7:22AM

"You didn't answer the question, what would you be willing to do to get information to save your loved ones lives?"

Why would I answer that question? It is a non sequitur. It is entirely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Whether or not a man in a desperate situation might have to break the law is hardly germane, and is obviously no argument in favor of lawbreaking. Your position is that because some man might feel it is in his best interest to break the law that man should not be accountable under the law. Are you truly not aware of how ridiculous, how absurd and indefensible that is? How that corrupt reasoning can apply to any crime? How every criminal can use that to excuse their lawbreaking? Come to your senses, man. Think about the implications of what you're saying.

S.L. Toddard| 5.12.09 @ 7:30AM

"Sorry Toddard but I went to SERE school and was an instructor, I also pulled 19 months in Vietnam."

I couldn't possibly care less. Believe me.

"What we are doing isn't torture."

You're quite wrong, and obviously so. We are "intentionally inflicting... suffering... for such purposes as obtaining... information or a confession". As per the Convention Against Torture, signed by President Reagan, suffering intentionally inflicted for such purposes constitutes torture, "whether physical or mental". That's how we get confessions - we cause suffering until they cannot take it any more and tell us what we want to hear. To claim this is not the case is, quite frankly, to prove oneself a liar.

S.L. Toddard| 5.12.09 @ 7:35AM

"To say that any act committed by US troops or personnel negates the very essence of American"

Then it's a good thing no one said, or even implied, that. To be honest I'm not sure what that means. What I said was that "torture is a negation of American values and the hallmark of un-civilization". Torture is incompatible with the American way, as are gulags, concentration camps and secret police.

Frank V.| 5.12.09 @ 9:03AM

I give credit to S.L. Toddard for airing an unpopular opinion on these pages and sticking to his position. However Mr. Toddard, you are speaking from profound ignorance. Do not discount those who tell you that they've been through the same treatment described in the "torture" memos and do not consider it as as such. I too have been waterboarded, slammed repeatedly against a pliable wall, slapped in the face till I saw stars, stuffed into a tiny box that barely held my folded 185 lb 6' frame, forced to sit for hours on end in a concrete box too small for me to sit up half the time wearing a canvas hood, etc...all this after a week of survival training in the CA desert, having slept very little and eaten less. In other words, physically and mentally weakened before the "torture" began. Oddly enough I did not then nor today feel as though I had been tortured...at all! How is this possible? Surely there must be residual anguish, mental scars that cause me to wake abruptly in a cold sweat, demons always lurking below the surface all resulting from the inhumane and cruel way I was "tortured". Sure it was not pleasant, but it was not torture. Any other claim is simply disingenuous.

S.L. Toddard| 5.12.09 @ 9:55AM

"I give credit to S.L. Toddard for airing an unpopular opinion on these pages and sticking to his position. However Mr. Toddard, you are speaking from profound ignorance. Do not discount those who tell you that they've been through the same treatment described in the "torture" memos and do not consider it as as such. I too have been waterboarded, slammed repeatedly against a pliable wall, slapped in the face till I saw stars, stuffed into a tiny box that barely held my folded 185 lb 6' frame, forced to sit for hours on end in a concrete box too small for me to sit up half the time wearing a canvas hood, etc...all this after a week of survival training in the CA desert, having slept very little and eaten less. In other words, physically and mentally weakened before the "torture" began. Oddly enough I did not then nor today feel as though I had been tortured...at all! How is this possible? Surely there must be residual anguish, mental scars that cause me to wake abruptly in a cold sweat, demons always lurking below the surface all resulting from the inhumane and cruel way I was "tortured". Sure it was not pleasant, but it was not torture. Any other claim is simply disingenuous."

I'm sorry - you had this done against your will? And "for such purposes as obtaining from (you) or a third person information or a confession, punishing (you) for an act (you) or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing (you) or a third person"? Because if not then you're right - it wasn't "torture", it was "training" designed to help you to *resist* torture.

Was that never explained to you?

Marcell| 5.12.09 @ 11:41AM

Water Boarding is illegal

Some pundits are spinning that the now infamous "waterboarding" was something less than torture. Waterboarding is torture, and it has been against the law in the United States for 111 years.
Four judge advocates general are on record before Congress characterizing waterboarding as inhumane and illegal.
In the 1898 Spanish-American War, some American soldiers used the "water cure" against guerrilla fighters. They were court-martialed.
In 1968, The Washington Post published a photo of an American soldier waterboarding a captured Vietnamese soldier. That soldier was court-martialed.
It's not whether or not you think it's moral -- it's against the law.
Thus, in 1947 the United States tried a Japanese officer for war crimes for waterboarding an American citizen and sentenced him to 15 years of hard labor.
In 1983, Texas' San Jacinto County Sheriff James Parker was charged and convicted by President Ronald Reagan's Department of Justice for waterboarding prisoners to obtain confessions.
To quote Fox News anchor Shepard Smith: "I don't give a rat's ass if it helps! We are America! We do not [bleeping] torture! We don't do it!"
Mike Buchanan
Salt Lake City

S.L. Toddard| 5.12.09 @ 1:07PM

Well, your wet dreams have come true, neocons: we have a reason to Impeach Obama. He has threatened to leave the UK open to a terrorist attack if they don’t help cover-up US torture - committing an impeachable crime to cover-up an impeachable crime:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/12/obama/index.html

I will support any and all efforts to bring Obama to justice for this crime. Will any of you?

John II| 5.12.09 @ 2:53PM

This inquiry is addressed to the one called S.L. Toddard. I just finished wading through the whole string of responses up to the 1:07 PM posting. There are, of course, many shades of "conservatism," stretching from the libertarian to the paleocon. And, like the ten basic uses of the subjunctive mood in Latin, there are permutations without number of the basic "conservative" labels.

S.L. Toddard, who appears to have done most of the posting in this series, has repeatedly referred to himself, not without a certain primness, as "conservative," yet there were a few responses to which Toddard gave no answer, unless I missed it in the blur of running through all the postings.

S.L. Toddard: If I may count on a prompt response, what IS your take on abortion? I know what the ACLU thinks about the topic, and I know what Barack Obama & Co. think about it. But amid a cataract of minute responses to your critics, you seem to have let the abortion reference (contending that the liberal-left's high dudgeon over "torture" is bogus) slip by.

Was that an oversight? Is there a "conservative" position on the topic of abortion? Would you say that topic is "irrelevant" to fathoming, for example, the mindset of an American political class who embrace foreign dictators while demonizing their own countrymen?

John Navratil| 5.12.09 @ 5:11PM

There are several comments suggesting Sheriff Parker of San Jacinto County, Texas was convicted of torture for "water boarding". The original case entitled "United States v. Parker et al" cannot be found (by me at least) only the appeal "http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/744/744.F2d.1124.83-2675.html" in which the judge refers to the action as torture.

Contemporaneous news reports refer to the actions as torture, however it appears the Sheriff was convicted of extortion and violating the civil rights of their victims. Reports also claim they were given the maximum sentence of 10 years, but the maximum for torture is 20 years as prescribed by US Code, Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 113C (or up to death if the victim dies).

You may say "water boarding" is torture under definitions given in Section 2340, but that is apparently not what Sheriff Parker was convicted for.

Charlene| 5.12.09 @ 5:59PM

If it's torture inflicted on al qaeda, whether suspect or proven, I have no sympathy. Watch the Daniel Pearl decapitation video. Any being that actually holds concern for the physical or mental welfare of any al qaeda is truly a waste of existence. Do the real humans beings a favor; stop breathing the air we could be breathing.

ds80| 5.12.09 @ 6:53PM

Tom Paine: " Bush kept us safe"

Glad to see you now realize what everyone else already knew: he surely did keep America safe. And that's what really bothers the Left.

Reagan's not with us, so it has to be attacks on Bush/Cheney/Limbaugh to distract from the Pre-school President's utter incompetence.

ds80| 5.12.09 @ 7:01PM

When, on Obama's watch, the next terrorist attack against the US occurs, do you think the legacy media will report how, upon learning of the fact, the Pre-school President immediately wet himself and blamed Bush?

Will the teleprompter say "We inherited this terrorist attack" -?

Will the Pre-school President go on another Apology Tour?

S.L. Toddard| 5.12.09 @ 7:56PM

"S.L. Toddard: If I may count on a prompt response, what IS your take on abortion?"

I believe - or, rather, I recognize - that abortion is a state issue as per the 10th Amendment. Roe v Wade is quite obviously a sham. On its face it's ludicrous - the Fourteenth and/or Ninth Amendments guarantee a right to abort a fetus? I find it hard to believe, even now, that anyone can make that claim with a straight face.

"I know what the ACLU thinks about the topic, and I know what Barack Obama & Co. think about it. But amid a cataract of minute responses to your critics, you seem to have let the abortion reference (contending that the liberal-left's high dudgeon over "torture" is bogus) slip by."

Because it's irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Abortion is legal, though the foundation of that legality is faulty. Therefore abortion and torture - whatever one alleges that the fetus "feels" - are simply not analogous. It's a rather obvious, paltry way to frame the discussion in such a way as to demonize the opposition ("They want to coddle murdering terrorists but torture babies!"), and, recognizing it for the cheap tactic it is, I chose to ignore it.

"Is there a "conservative" position on the topic of abortion?"

Yes - that it is a state matter and that Roe v Wade was a travesty. Apart from that, a conservative could come to his position any number of ways. If he was a Catholic, he might side with the church. If his primary concern were individual liberty, he might contend that it is up to each person to grapple with the complexities of the issue his or herself. Regardless, it is certainly not an issue that defines a "conservative", though it does partially define the tawdry, superficial caricature that passes for "conservative" in the MSM and amongst the inadequately informed, I suppose.

"Would you say that topic is "irrelevant" to fathoming, for example, the mindset of an American political class who embrace foreign dictators while demonizing their own countrymen?"

If such a thing were to ever happen then yes, the abortion issue would obviously be irrelevant to a discussion of that fantastical scenario. Embrace foreign dictators? Demonizing countrymen? How bizarre. The issue at hand has nothing to do with foreign dictatorships, but rather the late *domestic* one, referred to euphemistically as the "unitary executive", I believe, which unprecedentedly seized powers never delegated to it by the Constitution, including the power to order Americans to break the law, eradicating habeas corpus, institute a torture regime, illegally establishing a massive KGB-style domestic spying program to monitor the phone calls of lawful American citizens etc. The list *does* go on, does it not?

S.L. Toddard| 5.12.09 @ 8:02PM

"If it's torture inflicted on al qaeda, whether suspect or proven, I have no sympathy."

I'm not sure what that has to do with anything. No one's asking for your sympathy for Al Qaeda, merely your respect for America's laws, traditions and good name. I shouldn't be surprised if you have none of that either - it seems to be in scant amongst those who seek to turn our country into some sort of Baathist regime, replete with our very own torture chambers.

How revolting.

S.L. Toddard| 5.12.09 @ 8:03PM

"When, on Obama's watch, the next terrorist attack against the US occurs, do you think the legacy media will report how, upon learning of the fact, the Pre-school President immediately wet himself and blamed Bush?"

That's funny, because I remember neoconservatives trying to blame 9/11 on Clinton. It's good to know, though, that you recognize that claim as ridiculous and hold Bush fully responsible for that failure.

S.L. Toddard| 5.12.09 @ 8:04PM

"Glad to see you now realize what everyone else already knew: he surely did keep America safe."

*cough* nine-eleven *cough*

S.L. Toddard| 5.12.09 @ 8:16PM

I wonder, what do you people believe happens in extraordinary renditions? Do you believe they are a figment of wild loony leftist imaginations? Or that we render these captives to barbaric countries to do other than torture them?

John II| 5.13.09 @ 10:57AM

Mr. Toddard: Thank you for your detailed response, and forgive my delay.

In other words, you are pro-abortion. That strikes me as a libertarian position over here on the right, which doesn't leave my position with anything very deeply in common with yours.

Unless you discover an interest in the philosophy of jurisprudence. You seem to me to be placing all your faith in law without explicit interest in its underpinnings.

Whatever. Thanks for the response.

S.L. Toddard| 5.13.09 @ 11:45AM

"In other words, you are pro-abortion."

Who's in the what now? Someone who believes Roe V Wade should be overturned is "Pro-Abortion"?

"Unless you discover an interest in the philosophy of jurisprudence. You seem to me to be placing all your faith in law without explicit interest in its underpinnings. "

I cant begin to guess what that means.

For everyone else: what do you people believe happens in extraordinary renditions? Do you believe they are a figment of wild loony leftist imaginations? Or that we render these captives to barbaric countries to do other than torture them?

John II| 5.13.09 @ 2:32PM

Mr. Toddard: My apologies again for the delay. It looks as if all the other interlocutors have moved on to a different set of rants. We're all alone, it seems.

There is no need to "guess" at what I mean when I suggest that you have no "explicit" interest in the underpinnings of positive law.

I don't think it's possible for anyone not to be deeply interested in the underpinnings of law, but I'm certain that most people don't consciously examine the underpinnings. To put it another way, I've never met anyone who had no philosophy, but I've met very few who claim any serious interest in the topic or exhibited a conscious pursuit of the kinds of questions subsumed by the topic. There seem to be far more people in this world who express the opinionated self-certitudes of a Callicles or Thrasymachus than there are folks who express the quietly pointed reflections of a Socrates.

For example, you seem to imply that your stance against Roe v. Wade on technical legal grounds (which I concur with, by the way, as do quite a few serious legal scholars otherwise of broadly "liberal" sentiments) is the reason I concluded that you are "pro-abortion." If your opposition to Roe v. Wade were my reason, I would have to be stupid, in which case I'm not sure why you would bother to have responded.

No, I concluded that you are pro-abortion from the rest of what you said in response to my inquiry. One cannot be latitudinarian about abortion without being pro-abortion. That's how basic the issue is. It is clear to me from your language that you have never looked into the issue deeply--I mean, beyond the techie legal issues involved. And by "language" I don't mean your disdainful tone or dismissive one-liners.

Rather, I mean, for instance, your interesting use of the term "obviously" in the last paragraph of your 7:56 response. It tells me that you won't look at things beyond a certain relatively shallow depth. I think you're surely INTERESTED in matters deeper than the law because none of us can avoid being so. But you're apparently not EXPLICITLY interested.

The positive law and our judgments of its soundness and efficacy depend on the deeper matters of first principles. One cannot "prove" the time-honored first principle that life must be cherished, for example, but we finally depend on that principle to argue for or against (to prove or disprove) the cogency of positive law.

It was the insouciance in your remarks about abortion, not your legal opinion, that led me to conclude that you're pro-abortion, and that we therefore probably have an insufficient common ground for argument. One cannot refute a sneer.

S.L. Toddard| 5.13.09 @ 7:06PM

Oh. Well, I have a very concise response you will find equally difficult to refute, and it's: you're wrong. I'm not "pro-abortion". You are categorically incorrect.

As for this oddity:

"One cannot be latitudinarian about abortion without being pro-abortion. That's how basic the issue is."

A fanatic from the other side of the issue could just as easily - and as truthfully - claim "One cannot be latitudinarian about the 'right to choose' without being anti-choice. That's how basic the issue is." Both claims are, of course, equally invalid and absurd.

S.L. Toddard| 5.13.09 @ 7:24PM

"I think you're surely INTERESTED in matters deeper than the law because none of us can avoid being so. But you're apparently not EXPLICITLY interested."

I still can't begin to guess what you are getting at. What does it matter if my interest has been "explicit" or not? Especially given the extremely limited extent of our intercourse. From my point of view you have no "explicit" relationship with Christ and no "explicit" opinions one way or the other with regards to abortion. What bearing does that have on anything whatsoever?

Richard Baker| 5.13.09 @ 7:38PM

As memory serves, the Russians had someone from their Embassy kidnapped by one of the crazy militias in Beirut in the '70s. The Russians had the brother of the militia leader captured, killed, and dumped on that leader's doorstep with his genitals sewn into his mouth. The next day, the Embassy official walked, unhurt, into the Soviet Embassy and the Soviets were never disturbed again. Despite all the talk about "Allah, the Most merciful and Compassionate", the Arabs seem to only respond to brutal treatment. For those of you who think that yelling, water torture (which I underwent in the Army) , and caterpillars are extreme methods, remember Nick Berg, who was beheaded after having his throat slit and was videoed in his death agony. Read the Koran. It is a warrior code similar to Bushido which was used by the Imperial Japanes military in WWII. If you prissy girly men don't understand the nature of our enemy, then return to your sodomous behavior and let MEN safeguard our Liberty and Freedom.

John II| 5.13.09 @ 8:34PM

"Both claims are, of course, equally invalid and absurd."

On the contrary, the second claim is silly; the first is true. They bear only a grammatical, not an ontological, comparison.

Again, I cannot refute a sneer, but I think there's an interesting point buried in the second paragraph of your second response. I would counter that I don't believe it's necessary for us to know one another personally at all to judge the distinct character of the language we're each using.

The language that you're using bristles with contempt and a certain know-it-all insecurity that I'm certain I recognize and that I can go well beyond beginning to guess that you too must recognize when you hear someone else using it.

For example, a "fanatic" is, by definition, a person who rejects argument, yet in your first of the last two postings, you used the term to characterize me (without knowing me, by the way) because . . . I seem to have said something (in the course of making an argument) that you subsequently claim you can't "guess" at the meaning of. If I were inclined in the same direction as you seem to be in your language, I suppose I would say that your remark associating me with fanaticism is "absurd." I prefer to point out that your remark reflects (a) a careless use of words and (b) an insouciance about self-contradiction. I don't need to know you at all to make these judgments about your language.

Now, the language you're using is generally NOT the language used by those few people of my acquaintance (after almost 70 years on this strange planet) who are habituated to thinking deeply. And what I was "getting at," if I can tell you without simply repeating myself, is that you and I could probably never have a serious argument about a serious issue. Once again, the insouciant LANGUAGE of your expostulations regarding abortion (not you personally, whoever you are) tells me that you have never plumbed the depths with that issue. You wouldn't talk the way the you do about it if you had the same sense I do of the profound threat legalized abortion poses to the very foundations of our legal system and our ability to think clearly about it.

The opposite of the fanatic is the skeptic, and there's a peculiar trait the ivory tower skeptic shares with the bomb-tossing fanatic: they both reject argument. A closer reading of Aristotle and Quintillian, among others, would, I think, make this all clearer to you--but your language suggests that such reading would be of no interest to you. Example: "What bearing does that have on anything whatsoever?" You're not really asking me a question. You're merely delivering a sneer, in rather a cliched fashion.

S.L. Toddard| 5.13.09 @ 9:48PM

"On the contrary, the second claim is silly; the first is true. They bear only a grammatical, not an ontological, comparison."

Again, the same argument could be put forth by a pro-choice fanatic, with equal legitimacy. Prove that it is true, using an argument that could not be used just as handily on the pro-choice side.

"Again, I cannot refute a sneer, but I think there's an interesting point buried in the second paragraph of your second response. I would counter that I don't believe it's necessary for us to know one another personally at all to judge the distinct character of the language we're each using."

That would not be a counter-point, it would be a non-sequitur. The question remains: how is whether I "explicitly" stated, to you, whether or not I am interested in the "underpinnings of the law" relevant. You yourself have not "explicitly" stated whether you are interested in the "underpinnings" of the law. How are either of those facts relevant.

"The language that you're using bristles with contempt and a certain know-it-all insecurity that I'm certain I recognize and that I can go well beyond beginning to guess that you too must recognize when you hear someone else using it."

Contempt is the appropriate response to the contemptible. Do you mean the language I've used with you? If so it was unintentional. You have yet to earn my contempt.

"For example, a "fanatic" is, by definition, a person who rejects argument, yet in your first of the last two postings, you used the term to characterize me..."

Did I? Where?

"I seem to have said something (in the course of making an argument) that you subsequently claim you can't "guess" at the meaning of. If I were inclined in the same direction as you seem to be in your language, I suppose I would say that your remark associating me with fanaticism is "absurd.""

"Non-existent" would be more accurate.

"Now, the language you're using is generally NOT the language used by those few people of my acquaintance (after almost 70 years on this strange planet) who are habituated to thinking deeply."

Irrelevant, ad hominem.

"And what I was "getting at," if I can tell you without simply repeating myself, is that you and I could probably never have a serious argument about a serious issue."

If this is your idea of a serious argument then you're absolutely correct. How is whether I "explicitly" stated, to you, whether or not I am interested in the "underpinnings of the law" relevant? You yourself have not "explicitly" stated whether you are interested in the "underpinnings" of the law. How are either of those facts relevant?

"Once again, the insouciant LANGUAGE of your expostulations regarding abortion (not you personally, whoever you are) tells me that you have never plumbed the depths with that issue. You wouldn't talk the way the you do about it if you had the same sense I do of the profound threat legalized abortion poses to the very foundations of our legal system and our ability to think clearly about it."

Anyone who has "plumbed the depths" with that issue would have "the same sense (you) do of the profound threat legalized abortion poses to the very foundations of our legal system and our ability to think clearly about it"? Which is to say that anyone who has not reached the same conclusions you have about the issue has by definition not "plumbed the depths"? Anyone who thinks deeply enough about the issue can arrive at only one conclusion - yours? You Know the Truth. Someone who claims to Know The Truth while implying that any who disagree simply aren't using their brains enough, who calls *someone else* to task for writing like a "know it all" speaks to a certain insouciance about self-contradiction.

"The opposite of the fanatic is the skeptic etc etc etc etc"

More irrelevant ad-hominem.

Richard Baker| 5.13.09 @ 10:05PM

To John II and Stoddard:
Your sterile arguments are just another form of mental masturbation. It probably feels good to you but is "full of sound and fury and signifies nothing". Sorta like the nonsense that goes on in the United Nations everyday.

John II| 5.13.09 @ 11:44PM

Well, not to beat a dead horse, but so far there has not been an argument, sterile or otherwise. There have been my attempts at clarification and Mr. Toddard's peculiar outbursts of abuse, which continue to illustrate (to what end?) my point that Mr. Toddard is not a person with whom one may hope to argue.

But the Macbeth allusion seems inapt, unless you (Mr. Baker) wish to convey the furious and despairing cynicism Macbeth communicates with that line.

On the other hand, you may be on to something with the United Nations allusion.

Richard Baker| 5.14.09 @ 2:04AM

To John II:
Both of you are arguing for the sake of arguing to no purpose. This is what I mean by sterile. Too many who call themselves learned engage in this sort of mindless discussion. As you will note, I refer to both of you and not individually. This country is wasting away because of such sterile arguments. Sad because being an American IS the highest attainment. This kind of argument is typical of the loser Europeans who exemplify the death of the human spirit.

John II| 5.14.09 @ 2:51AM

Yo Richard. I can't speak for Mr. Toddard, and I obviously can't persuade you that you're misusing the term "argue"--or rather, you're using the term in the loose sense of wrangling. I never wrangle except in deliberate jest. It's undignified, and dignity is the only thing I can afford in my not-very-heavily-compensated life's work as a teacher.

I can't speak for the rest of the country either, but you needn't worry about me: five kids and, so far, five grandkids--all of them true-blue Americano conservatives who, by the way, like to argue (not wrangle), and are pretty good at it. At any rate, gentle as they are with the old man, they always leave me in the dust, feeling vaguely like a flaky liberal by comparison.

As Hector says in Book VI of the Iliad, a father can have no greater joy than the knowledge that his children are better people than him, and my own kids are better American citizens than I partly because they can argue better.

None of which, I assure you, has anything to do with "the death of the human spirit."

S.L. Toddard| 5.14.09 @ 9:25AM

John II, leaving aside whatever that last discussion was or was not about or supposed to be about, where do you stand on the Iraq War, on the Bush presidency in general, and on government lawbreaking vis a vis detainee abuse and the domestic spying program?

I'm not looking to debate you on any of these points. I just cannot believe someone so learned and experienced would toe the neoconservative party line on these issues. I don't mean that sarcastically, by the way. You're certainly far better versed in the Classics than I am, and I suspect (though I don't know you enough to be sure) that you are Conservative in the sense that Kirk meant. I would be surprised to learn that you side with the neoconservatives here on these issues.

Just curious.

John II| 5.14.09 @ 12:37PM

Yes--"c0nservative in the sense that Kirk meant" fits pretty well, I think. Good guess--but please note that you made that guess from the language I use, and therefore it wasn't necessary to know me personally. (Okay--the exchange with Richard may have helped too.)

Funny you should mention Russell Kirk. I first read "The Conservative Mind" when I was in my late teens almost 50 years ago. I vaguely fancied myself liberal and opened the book with a sophomoric smirk when I stumbled upon it in the stacks while looking for something else in the college library. I closed the book several hours later, and the smirk was wiped clean off my face, permanently. It set me to reading a lot of other stuff: Burke, Newman, Hayek, Eliot, etc. Kirk, by the way, in his later years converted to the Roman Catholic Church, which didn't surprise me, as I'd made the same journey by then.

I guess I'm more Catholic than "Conservative," which is to say I'm VERY conservative (small c) about many things, but inclined to be radical (in the root sense of the word) about the most important things. In other words, I have a sense of how dependent reason is on faith, and I'm interested in good arguments.

Which leaves me wondering what the "neoconservative party line" might be. If we take, say, The Weekly Standard and Commentary and City Journal and First Things as representative publications of the folks called "neoconservatives" ("liberals mugged by reality," in Irving Kristol's famous definition), what I see is a lot of good argument. The term "party line" suggests some kind of lockstep adherence to ideology; what I see in those publications are interesting writers whose apparent likemindedness was, in each case, arrived at independently through reflection and argument: so they come together and write for the same publications. That's how it works.

Anyhow, to respond briefly to your questions about my "stance" (not the word I would prefer--it sounds too settled--but let it go):

Iraq war: We had what I think was better reason for taking out Saddam than for letting an unacceptable status quo continue; it was a grave mistake not to finish the job in 1991, and we've paid dearly for it; war always involves choices between unpleasant alternatives; I have some personal reason to hate war more than almost any other destructive human activity--almost; a few others are worse; I think George Weigel has made the best case for the Iraq venture--we'll see what we'll see.

Bush presidency: a mixed bag; I expect my grandchildren to feel some gratitude that Bush (and not Gore) was president when 9/11 happened, and I think he displayed better instincts about the character of the terrorist threat than do his relentless political enemies; he gave us two excellent Supreme Court appointments, albeit under pressure, and his instincts about taxes and the "climate change" mania were almost infinitely superior to those of his enemies, probably because he is not a lawyer and had some business experience and is just fundamentally a decent man; but the good-hearted bipartisanism he cultivated as a pretty successful governor of Texas didn't transfer well to Washington, and his habit of ignoring the vicious assaults of his enemies, although hugely more gracious and dignified than what we're already witnessing in Obama, was intermittently dangerous, and he was seldom able to articulate his policies persuasively, nor, it seems, much interested in doing so.

Government lawbreaking: Still watching this one, but, thanks partly to the left's politicizing and attempted criminalizing of policy differences, I'm getting more and more skeptical about whether there's any real issue here at all; I find the arguments of Andrew McCarthy way more informative and persuasive than the slippery utterances of Eric Holder; and perhaps because I've been in academia all my adult life (except for a revealing hiatus in the US Army), surrounded by people with the nitwit political instincts of Michael Moore and Sean Penn, I just don't trust the Left on this issue. Sad, because I'm old enough to remember when the left and the right could find a lot of common ground on this one--I mean, back when liberals were still patriotic.

S.L. Toddard| 5.14.09 @ 1:38PM

Well, I couldn’t disagree with your (for lack of a better word) “stances” on these three issues, and I would characterize them as typical of a neoconservative, though that’s not to say I believe you are one yourself, not knowing you from a hole in the wall. I am baffled as to how you personally can hold these positions (for lack of a better word – what would you like me to call them?). I just cannot wrap my head around it. I base that solely on your writing here, which gives me the impression of great intelligence. I do not believe that an intelligent, well-informed, thinking conservative can actually *be* a neoconservative, or agree with them in a general way, especially vis a vis the issues we’re addressing here. I recognize that there are intelligent, well-informed, thinking neoconservatives, but I believe those neoconservatives who profess to hold conservative principles are in the main disingenuous and cynical. Conservatism and neoconservatism (as exemplified by Bush/Cheney et al) are contradictory, if not entirely opposed. Bush’s presidency was the antithesis of a Conservative presidency – it was radical in the extreme, and one which every good conservative should have opposed and should still condemn.

That being said, when an elite member of the political class commits a crime – i.e. breaks the law – it is a “crime”, not a “policy difference”, which is a euphemism used by proponents of a two-tiered justice system – one for elites, and another, far harsher and unforgiving one for regular Americans. Leading democrats are implicated - were complicit - in the worst of these crimes, and so demanding accountability can hardly be characterized as partisan. It’s the last thing Obama or the Democrats in congress want – they will be decimated, at the very least. Obama himself has broken laws vis a vis his recent attempts to cover up evidence of torture and thwart attempts to hold elite lawbreakers accountable and should himself be held accountable. As such, demanding accountability under the law is about as un-partisan as a thing can be. I don’t think there’s an argument to be made that no laws were broken by the Bush administration in either the domestic spying scandals or with regard to the torture regime. I would be surprised if that was your argument – that no laws were broken - in fact. The argument made most often is that laws were broken for a good reason – that we need these laws broken in order to protect us, that terrorism is so frightening, that the threat is so great, that we cannot realistically expect our government to be bound by our laws anymore. It’s an illegitimate argument in my opinion, at least if one believes in the Rule of Law. One could classify any government lawbreaking as a “policy difference” if done by a politician one supports. For instance, when the GOP criminalized the “policy difference” they had with President Clinton vis a vis perjury and obstruction of justice.

As for Iraq I agree with Buchanan, and as for the Bush presidency I believe it was an unmitigated disaster for America, except insofar as it marginalized and exposed as corrupt the neoconservatives and their welfare/warfare state, interventionist “philosophy”.

Personally, we do share some things in common, especially with regard to Kirk and where his work led us, and with regard to the Catholic Church, in which I was raised and to which I would hope to return. I just, simply, don’t believe enough. I can’t *make* myself believe enough, and could not bear to return to Church as that most detestable of creatures, the “Cafeteria Catholic”. I shall be attending a Latin Mass in my area soon (my first), and hope that that leads to something. My point being that your journey led you (back?) into the bosom of Church, and it may be that mine will as well.

Forgive the inconsistencies and spelling errors, if there are any. I’m pounding this out at work on my break.

John II| 5.14.09 @ 3:11PM

Well--okay. I can't help feeling a good deal of fondness for Pat Buchanan, and I find myself in agreement with almost everything I've ever heard him say about domestic policy--but I think he's a little off on the foreign policy stuff, although I sure as hell sympathize with his fortress-America instincts. There's a certain irony, though, in his de facto Realpolitik, which strikes me as the opposite of principled statecraft. In retrospect, and despite all the unspeakable horrors of the venture, I think it was probably better that the ever-present and charming (and tempting) isolationist strain in America wasn't dominant when Pearl Harbor happened.

It may be that your instinctive dislike of the so-called neoconservatives comes more from dialectic than from conclusions. Richard Weaver once suggested (in his Ethics of Rhetoric) that a man's mode of argument is a more revealing index on his political instincts than the conclusions he draws. Conservatives, according to Weaver, typically argue from nature and definition; liberals argue from circumstance and cause & effect; poetic, religious types argue from analogy.

Well, it is clear that you are a conservative in Weaver's sense (he identified Lincoln as a conservative, by the way)--you seem to find nature and definition most efficacious in advancing your points. Most neoconservatives of my acquaintance dip heavily into causal analysis and circumstance in making their arguments--in other words, they are dialectical liberals, whatever their conclusions. (As to the third type, by the way, you can test Weaver's theory by listening carefully to the sermons/homilies when you return to church: see if you don't spot a lot of analogical comparisons.)

Anyhow, ever since I read the Weaver stuff years and years ago, I've been alert to modes of argument (Aristotle called them "topics"--the "regions" of the mind or soul from which we draw the connecting links in our patterns of thought: the principal three being nature, cause, and analogy--although Aristotle's list of such "topics"is much longer, less systematic, and rather unwieldy) and their implications about where the writer is "coming from." And it's pretty obvious that the dominant choice among "neoconservatives" of my acquaintance is cause & effect.

And so, just as liberals despise neoconservatives for their conclusions, I think it's plausible to suppose that Buchanan conservatives distrust neoconservatives for their mode of argument.

Me, I'm a Catholic (big C and small c both--and by choice; my parents, God rest their sensible souls, were secular atheists), so I'm comfortable with all three modes of argument. And I can't really think of much popping regularly out of the pages of the Standard that you wouldn't agree with. The book review section is one of the best I know of, and the hilarious "Parody" feature in the back is unfailingly spot-on (and deeply conservative without the neo-). Besides, my kids like it, leaving me scant room for disagreement.

Richard Baker| 5.14.09 @ 3:13PM

Gentlemen:
The reason I used the expression "sterile" is because your voluminous correspondence strikes me as "I'm smarter than you" as one would see in elementary schools. I was a High School teacher and saw the same kind of dueling one-up-manship there and when I was in college. This is the epitome of sterile.

John II| 5.14.09 @ 3:28PM

Well, as Napoleon Dynamite would say, Gosh!

But Richard . . . no, I won't go there. Damn. I had a really clever comeback, and I already forgot it.

S.L. Toddard| 5.14.09 @ 3:43PM

"I think it was probably better that the ever-present and charming (and tempting) isolationist strain in America wasn't dominant when Pearl Harbor happened. "

It *was* dominant when Pearl Harbor happened. I believe 80% of the country opposed involving America in Europe's wars. Surely you know this? That is why World War II was for America a *defensive* war, and morally justifiable. Non-interventionism requires that wars only be launched either in retaliation (defensive war) or in the face of an imminent attack or the clear and present danger of one. Like the good military non-interventionist country America was at the time, it held itself back from bloodying its hands in a conflict between sovereign, foreign nations until we were attacked - then those same non-interventionists flooded recruiting offices throughout the country and helped crush the Nazi menace. America's involvement is WWII is a perfect argument *for* non-interventionism, as it was the last necessary and just war we fought.

S.L. Toddard| 5.14.09 @ 3:58PM

"It may be that your instinctive dislike of the so-called neoconservatives comes more from dialectic than from conclusions."

Trust me, that is not the case at all. I do not "dislike" neoconservatives, I *reject* neoconservatism. I disagree with their conclusions, their methods and their objectives. I reject their entire jacobin worldview and their radical attack on the rule of law. One need only witness the fruits of neoconservatism to recognize that the very roots are poisoned. Radicalism and jacobinism, which are the essence of neoconservatism, are the antithesis of actual conservatism.

"Well, it is clear that you are a conservative in Weaver's sense (he identified Lincoln as a conservative, by the way)"

Then I cannot - and I don't meant to be argumentative here - be one in the Weaver sense. I can't imagine how anyone could think of Lincoln as a conservative. He left behind an entirely different nation than the one he was sworn to serve. What was a voluntary union of sovereign, independent states became a highly centralized nation-state with the states wholly subservient to the federal government. Lincoln was a force for change, not for conservation, despite his having preserved America territorially.

John II| 5.14.09 @ 4:17PM

Sorry--by "dominant" I meant preeminent in the places of power. I recall what I think are even more interesting numbers. The Gallup poll was started in 1936. When we declared war on Japan in December 1941 (and Germany foolishly declared war on us a week later), American support for the war effort was close to 90 percent.

Within six months of Pearl Harbor, support for what was already being called "Roosevelt's war" had dropped permanently below 50 percent (and the Gallup findings were censored by the government until after the war).

I find all this reassuring in a scary sort of way. There's nothing new in the pattern of American wariness of foreign entanglements, and it didn't start with Korea or Vietnam. When we're at war, it's appropriate, I think, for the current leadership to make a case for the venture well-nigh week-by-week. The Truman administration, the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations, and the Bush administration all failed miserably to do so.

Which I find, again, both scary (we're still living with the consequences) and reassuring (we're the kind of people for whom it's difficult to make a case for war).

S.L. Toddard| 5.14.09 @ 4:21PM

"And I can't really think of much popping regularly out of the pages of the Standard that you wouldn't agree with"

Let me help you out with that: I believe warrantless eavesdropping and torture should both be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent, especially at the highest levels of government. I believe Bush is a literal war criminal, in that I believe he has committed literal war crimes, esp under Convention Against Torture per Article 6. I reject the Wilsonian foreign policy of the neoconservatives and believe America should only launch wars defensively or in the face of an attack which poses a *clear* and *present* danger, and even then only with a congressional declaration of war - otherwise I believe we should not make war in any case. I believe, with the fall of the Soviet Union, that not only do our national interest and Israel's not coincide, they are diametrically opposed. I believe that our relationship with the Arab world, who own so much of the lifeblood of American industry and society, is more important to American national interest than our relationship with Israel. I therefore believe Israel should either conduct their foreign policy as America dictates or do it on their own dime. I believe we should close most of our military bases around the world, bring home our soldiers and let Europe defend itself. I believe we should build a border fence across the entire Mexican border. I reject free trade and believe we should implement an America-First trade policy whereby we place tariffs on foreign-produced goods in order to help rebuild American industry. I believe in the free market at home and reject "globalism" abroad.

Now, old friend, perhaps you can come up with one or two things.

So, can you think of anything now?

John II| 5.14.09 @ 4:44PM

Not right off. I'm speechless. Which may come as a relief to Richard, anyhow.

I think you must think Pat Buchanan is a pansy.

S.L. Toddard| 5.14.09 @ 8:09PM

Not at all. With the exception of my believing that the Rule of Law should extend even to elite lawbreakers in positions of political power in Washington (which is nowadays a distinctly minority opinion) Buchanan either holds most of those positions himself or is at least sympathetic to them.

When America faced an existential threat from the USSR, a case could be made that it was necessary or at least sensible for the US to go abroad involving itself in foreign wars and meddling in the affairs of sovereign nations. We no longer face an existential threat, and therefore have no need to dominate the globe with our vast military power. Wilsonian crusades to "make the world safe for democracy", or to "end tyranny", or to "end terror" or evil or what have you are un-conservative in the extreme, for they are based on un-conservative abstractions utterly divorced from reality. They assume that all men are good democrats waiting for the chance. They assume that democracy is a system that is right for all peoples of all cultures. They neglect the vast diversity of human culture and human nature, and assume the perfectibility of man on earth, against all common sense and Christian teaching. Surely you recognize this?

When was the last time you read Kirk? Do you honestly believe, apart from some rhetorical flourishes and nods to Christians, that there was anything at all "conservative" about the Bush administration, their agenda, their worldview, their foreign or domestic policies? Did they show prudence in foreign affairs? Did they show a respect for the rule of law? Did they show fiscal responsibility? Did they protect the integrity of our people and culture vis a vis the border? What headway did ten plus years of neoconservative domination of congress and eight years of a neoconservative president make in reversing Roe v Wade? And why aren't you furious and denying this cabal your support? For in supporting them you supported massive expansion of federal power, of the size and scope of the federal government, the starting of new and enormous federal social programs, the continuance of an open-border policy, the acceptance of Roe v Wade, a radical transformation of the role of the president, the elimination of habeas corpus, a KGB-like domestic intelligence program, secret prisons and a *torture regime*.

It's not 1979 anymore, when there were two teams, and one was conservative and the other was liberal. There is no conservative team in this game. You *must* recognize that.

John II| 5.15.09 @ 12:17AM

I seem to recall your saying you were "just curious" about where I stand on Iraq, Bush, and something else and that you weren't "looking to debate" me about any of it.

I guess I was snookered. Would it help if I just said "You're wise and right; I'm wrong and a fool"?

Other than delivering that irresistible chiasmus, I'm still speechless.

S.L. Toddard| 5.15.09 @ 8:45AM

You're right. Believe it or not I'm not really even trying to debate, I'm trying to understand. I can't grasp how you have ended up where you are. Unlike most people here you know what conservatism is – everyone else here thinks it’s “low taxes, aggressive military, pro-flag, anti-abortion” without realizing what is “conservative” about those positions, or why conservatives at first embraced them.

This next sentence is going to run on like crazy: I suspect some old-school conservatives, ones who have been around since the Goldwater days, back when there was a Liberal party and a Conservative one to oppose it, have conceded so much ground, little by little, to “pragmatism”, to changing societal values and so forth, in order to help keep the “greater of two evils” out of power, i.e. to make short term gains and win elections, that the party and ideas they now support are no longer recognizably conservative, and are in fact the opposite. They have conceded and conceded and conceded, and now regularly vote for a party that is fiscally irresponsible in the extreme - that invariably increases government spending astronomically (and more so than the “liberal” one), does not shut down or roll back federal social programs but instead expands old ones and starts new ones, that has abandoned the concept of states rights… Actually I don’t need to run down the long list of radical, statist, social-democratic policies the GOP now (and their voters by extension) supports again – you can just scroll up for those. So they have conceded all of this philosophical ground in the name of pragmatism and retaining power, but are still operating under the belief that they and their party are the “conservative” opposition, that because they are voting against Democrats, and because their party opposes Democrats, that it is “conservative”, when really neither the party nor the policies are conservative in the Burkean or Kirkean or Goldwaterite or Buchananian (I just made that one up) sense at all. They now accept Big-Government fiscal irresponsibility at home and Wilsonian adventurism abroad (due perhaps to it being inconceivable to former Cold Warriors that there might come a point where America need no longer go abroad seeking monsters to destroy) and believe it is conservatism because they are thwarting the Democratic party. And they have, in turn, been convinced that conservative policies and conservative principles are no longer applicable or pragmatic, that the conservative virtues of prudence, humility, caution – that these have no place in American foreign policy any more and that to believe they do is naive and manifestly un-serious.

That’s not to say that this describes *you*, but it’s my theory for why some conservatives now support (what I consider) such a patently anti-conservative party and agenda.

S.L. Toddard| 5.15.09 @ 2:07PM

Just to be clear: I said "You're right" in reference to you mentioning that I said I was just curious and not looking for a debate. That was *not* in response to you being "snookered" (I've always liked that word) or being a fool, which you should know I do not believe.

KnowThyself| 5.15.09 @ 2:43PM

Reposting for nonresponsiveness:

S.L. Toddard - Several times you have cited the definition of torture (i.e., "severe pain and suffering") and have followed this by some variant of "waterboarding clearly fits this definition." I read the same definition, and come to the conclusion that waterboarding (at least as far as its practice is described in the so-called "torture memos") does not meet that definition. You'll have to take my word that I'm a sincere and thoughtful person when I ask: what specific aspects of waterboarding, as this term is qualified above, constitute "severe pain" or "severe suffering"?

S.L. Toddard| 5.15.09 @ 3:48PM

"I read the same definition, and come to the conclusion that waterboarding (at least as far as its practice is described in the so-called "torture memos") does not meet that definition."

Really. So you believe it is an effective method of forcing captives to give up information because they do *not* experience "sever pain and suffering"? You believe *drowning* entails no pain and no suffering? That's your contention. And worse, you are trying to pretend that you believe that *repeatedly drowning* someone also causes no pain or suffering. Why not just admit that you think they should be able to use water torture to force captives to give information?

KnowThyself| 5.16.09 @ 12:38AM

Interesting non-answer.

I did not say, as you suggest, that captives give up information BECAUSE they "do not experience severe pain and suffering." That would be absurd (which, I gather, is the point of your "misreading"). The "giving up of information" is entirely beside the point of my point. To say, as I do, that waterboarding does not appear to cause "severe" pain and suffering is not to say that it does not cause pain and suffering.

You then state: "You believe *drowning* [I believe you mean "waterboarding", but please correct me if that is wrong] entails no pain and suffering." I was very clear in stating I do not believe that waterboarding, as detailed in the memos, causes SEVERE pain and suffering. Going to the dentist causes pain and suffering. That does not make the dentist a torturer. As you are fond of citing the CAT, however, I know that you are well aware of the fact that "torture" involves acts that cause "severe pain and suffering." I believe that waterboarding works precisely because it causes pain and suffering; I simply do not believe that it rises to the "severe pain and suffering" threshold.

So, here we are, back at the beginning again. Once more: several times you flatly stated that waterboarding "clearly" meets the CAT definition of "torture." Given that this fact is so "clear", you should have no difficulty whatever responding to my original question: what specific aspects of waterboarding, as this term is qualified above, constitutes "severe pain" or "severe suffering"?

Again, I look forward to your considered RESPONSE.

P.S. As an aside, your contention appears to be that ONLY "severe" pain and suffering could cause a person to "give up information"; mere "pain and suffering" is insufficient? Is that correct? Perhaps I misread you ...

P.P.S. Your final comment ("Why not just admit that you think they should be able to use water torture to force captives to give information?") is easily answered: I don't need to admit this because I do not believe it. (Also, the way you frame the question imports, in a most unfair manner, the very term that is under dispute. Tsk. Tsk.) You and I seem to agree that "torture" (again, as defined in the CAT) should be illegal and forbidden. The difference is that you think that waterboarding is torture, and I do not. (Although I'll certainly be open to persuasion upon considering your response to my question.)

John II| 5.16.09 @ 11:11PM

My dear Toddard: I have been distracted by hugely pleasant family duties these past few days. Thank you for your response to my response.

I'm wary of responding again because I'm fascinated by the new exchange with the one called "KnowThyself," and I don't want to interrupt. But one question that's been buzzing in the back of my brain-stem these past few days is, "What did Toddard mean by 1979?" What the hell happened in 1979? My own inclination is to suppose that the western world started seriously to go into decline in 1789, with the outbreak of the preposterous French Revolution and its ancillary and murderously pretentious imbecilities.

But 1979? Let's see, Carter was president, inflation was at double-digits, Iran was in the early stages of becoming what my friend Toddard calls an "existential threat," thanks in great part to the fecklessness of Carter, and housing was in the early stages of its unaffordablility, thanks to possibly well-intentioned liberal policies that have only recently become obvious in their baleful effects.

In other words, 1979 was a year of standard human crisis. What makes it so different?

Now before you respond, Toddard, have a care. Do you know what I would do to any student of mine who pulled a stunt like that one on me? I mean, a student who mined my hard-earned knowledge with protestations of innocent curiosity and then used my frank responses as a springboard for a personal assault?

Perhaps I shouldn't tell you because I realize you are queasy even about non-tortuous torture. But let me assure you that, once I was through with that hypothetical student, there would be nothing left of him but his bleached bones scattered upon the desert sands.

No--I SHALL tell you. I would lock that student into an old Pullman car with the windows closed and no air-conditioning, on a lengthy train ride through the southeast, and I would plant Barack Obama in the seat across from the student and force the student to listen to Obama expound his political philosophy hour after hour after hour.

Have a care.

KnowThyself| 5.17.09 @ 12:00AM

I echo the call for "ad hominem"-free discussions. Nothing betrays a person's intellectual bankruptcy quite as quickly as the personal assault. I dislike liberals who take this line; I detest conservatives who do so.

Interesting that we have (i) one Catholic (John II), (ii) one longing for a return to Catholicism (Toddard), and (iii) me. To elaborate: I was raised in the Catholic church, but left rather early because I could not bring myself to accept (intellectually) the existence of god. This led to a young man's scorn for those of faith. Gradually, over the years, this has softened to the point that I now take my wife and children to a Catholic church each Sunday. I am now convinced that, whatever my personal view on the matter, religion (in the traditional Christian sense - not in the "secular" global warming (etc.) sense) is, on the whole, a fundamental and necessary component of our culture, and that it should be supported and encouraged. I do often wish that I could somehow allow myself to accept the Catholic faith, but, unfortunately, I have not sensed much movement in that direction.

I was, however, thinking about starting a group called "Atheists for Jesus" (I'm an agnostic, but I think that title has more "bite"). I wonder what my college professors would make of that?

S.L. Toddard| 5.17.09 @ 12:17PM

John II - 1979 has absolutely no significance, other than it being a time when both liberalism and conservatism had champions and presidential elections were in part a clash between those two philosophies. My point was only that this is no longer the case - that the contest is now between (due to the constant surrender of philosophical ground by conservatives in the name of pragmatism) two very similar (in practice) and equally un-conservative Big Government philosophies, both versions of Great Society liberalism at home and Wilsonian adventurism abroad, with the GOP's being slightly more aggressive in its military interventionism and quest for American world hegemony. That was not bait, it was really just a throwaway comment I now wish I hadn't written because it's served as a distraction.

KnowThyself - we don't really have any further to go in our discussion, I think. What more is there to say? You don't believe the captives we've detained have been subject to "severe pain and suffering". Those captives disagree, as does the International Red Cross and so forth. I think, maybe, we can both agree that at least the case is not closed as to whether the suffering caused is "severe", and that either way investigations are both warranted by common sense and human decency as well as mandated by law. Captives who were later released (being innocent of any crime) allege that they were tortured, as do respected international bodies and members of the intelligence community etc, and the Convention Against Torture is clear that *allegations* of torture *must* be investigated, period. Should they find no torture took place then the government will have been vindicated and the law will have been served. Should they find it did, then the lawbreakers - from both dominant welfare/warfare parties - will be held accountable.

S.L. Toddard| 5.17.09 @ 12:55PM

"Now before you respond, Toddard, have a care. Do you know what I would do to any student of mine who pulled a stunt like that one on me?"

That's unfair, you know. I haven't pulled any stunts or been anything but civil and entirely open to you in this exchange, at least since you demonstrated that you are a thinking man. Although I do apologize for my initial attitude, which you would understand better if you knew the venomous attacks I'm subjected to regularly here for voicing conservative objections to neoconservative radicalism, lawbreaking and hypocrisy. I really am just fascinated. You mention 1789 and the French Revolution as a pivotal point in human history vis a vis a downward slide since then, yet support and share views with the Neo-Jacobin neoconservatives. I'm trying to understand this disconnect, between your conservatism and your support for the manifestly un-conservative GOP. Is it strictly, and always, a "lesser of two evils" thing? I know you're not duped by their campaign rhetoric. I know you know what they do - what they've *done* - once in office. Or do you consider yourself - and this will be worded clumsily - a social conservative who has come to believe that the conservative objectives of yesteryear (small, unintrusive, fiscally responsible federal gov't, states rights, etc) are impractical? Or is it that you believe the terrorist threat - meager as it seems compared to the Soviet one - is so great that one must hold one's nose and vote for the neoconservative party so it can continue its crusade to end Evil, end Terror and end Tyranny in *the world*? And if *that* is the case, do you consider those objectives "conservative"?

S.L. Toddard| 5.17.09 @ 8:06PM

"at least since you demonstrated that you are a thinking man."

That should read "at least since *I realized* that etc"

S.L. Toddard| 5.17.09 @ 8:41PM

Knowthyself - Here is some of what is being kept from the public now by Obama - from a 2005 Editor and Publisher piece (link below). Let me know if you think any of the suffering qualifies as "severe" :

Last year a Republican senator conceded that they contained scenes of "rape and murder" and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said they included acts that were "blatantly sadistic."

…What is shown on the photographs and videos from Abu Ghraib prison that the Pentagon has blocked from release? One clue: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Congress last year, after viewing a large cache of unreleased images, "I mean, I looked at them last night, and they're hard to believe." They show acts "that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhumane," he added.

.A Republican Senator suggested the same day they contained scenes of "rape and murder."

The photos were among thousands turned over by the key "whistleblower" in the scandal, Specialist Joseph M. Darby. Just a few that were released to the press sparked the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal last year, and the video images are said to be even more shocking.

…To get a sense of what may be shown in these images, one has to go back to press reports from when the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal was still front page news.

This is how CNN reported it on May 8, 2004, in a typical account that day:

…"'The American public needs to understand we're talking about rape and murder here. We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience,' Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told reporters after Rumsfeld testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. 'We're talking about rape and murder -- and some very serious charges.'

"A report by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba on the abuse at the prison outside Baghdad says videotapes and photographs show naked detainees, and that groups of men were forced to masturbate while being photographed and videotaped. Taguba also found evidence of a 'male MP guard having sex with a female detainee.'

"Rumsfeld told Congress the unrevealed photos and videos contain acts 'that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhuman.'"

The military later screened some of the images for lawmakers, who said they showed, among other things, attack dogs snarling at cowed prisoners, Iraqi women forced to expose their breasts, and naked prisoners forced to have sex with each other.

In the same period, reporter Seymour Hersh, who helped uncover the scandal, said in a speech before an ACLU convention: "Some of the worse that happened that you don't know about, ok? Videos, there are women there. Some of you may have read they were passing letters, communications out to their men ... . The women were passing messages saying 'Please come and kill me, because of what's happened.'

"Basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys/children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. The worst about all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror it's going to come out."

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001218842

Waterboarding aside, do you agree, Knowthyself, that an investigation is not only mandated by law (Convention Against Torture) but also warranted by the laws of human decency and American national honor?

KnowThyself| 5.17.09 @ 11:00PM

It was clear that we did not agree. I was only asking for you to identify the specific nature of the "severe [physical] pain and suffering" or the "prolonged mental harm" inflicted on those we have been subjected to waterboarding. If I were to learn that these effects were the likely (or even reasonably possible) result of waterboarding, I would be fully on board with the idea that waterboarding constitutes torture. Perhaps we can simply agree to disagree, as you suggest.

One question: who do you think should conduct the investigations into whether torture was committed? (I do disagree with you that investigations are necessary; I think, given the facts known at this point (to me, at least), that odds of obtaining a verdict against anyone of any seniority are nil, or worse. It would be a waste of time, and what would it prove?)

Thanks again for your thoughts.

P.S. One quibble: the CAT only requires that allegations of torture be investigated/prosecuted when "the circumstances so warrant."

KnowThyself| 5.17.09 @ 11:04PM

Toddard - Please realize that I didn't read your 8:41 PM response before I posted my 11:00 PM response . I will read, and respond to, your 8:41 comments as soon as I can.

KnowThyself| 5.18.09 @ 7:57AM

Any time a member of our military, no less than a non-military member of our society, commits a crime such as rape or murder that person should be tried and punished (and the death penalty is fine for me in either case). I doubt you'll find anyone who would disagree with that. At the same time, I don't think the general public has any more need to see photographs of rape or murder in the military context than we do in the civilian; I certainly have no interest. My understanding is that the people who committed crimes at Abu Ghraib have already been punished. Unless there are others still at large, case closed for me.

Nick| 5.18.09 @ 8:28AM

KnowThyself,

Mr. Toddard told me he would investigate (and I assume prosecute) WWII vets, who have admitted to shooting and killing unarmed prisoners, for war crimes.
Just to give you an idea of where he is coming from.

Nick| 5.18.09 @ 8:57AM

After rereading the above post, I think I should add some context.

I saw these vets in a few different documentaries in the last 10 years. They admitted to shooting unarmed POW's. One vet said his commander told him to take the prisoner to HQ and be back in 15 minutes. HQ was a mile away. The vet knew what he was being ordered to do.

The point is these were battlefield decisions, not shooting prisoners in camps. They couldn't always take prisoners back to the rear in the middle of a battle.

I don't think I'm speaking only for myself when I say I wouldn't investigate or prosecute these self-confessed "war criminals".

John II| 5.18.09 @ 10:28AM

Toddard: It appears that KnowThyself and Nick are doing a lot of footwork for me, so I'd like to take a pass on the Abu Ghraib reference, since in any event it strikes me as an instance of what the
Greeks called ignoratio elenchi, the fallacy of advancing a point by means of an unrelated point.

Skip it. What I'd like to suggest is that we move up to today's (5/18/09) TAS postings (partly because it's going to get downright awkward to keep running back to this endless present series of responses to the 5/11 Hyman posting.

Here's your assignment. Read the (short) Mark Sanford entry on "It's Up to Us." Then read the "blackelkspeaks" response. Then jump into the fray and tell us all what's on your mind.

Then we can all perhaps get back on track with the topic of "conservatism," which is where you appear to want to take the present conversation anyhow. I'm eager to find out why you suggested, dozens of postings ago, that I couldn't possibly remember much of the Kirk book that started it all for me.

I shall not again return to 5/11. I'll see you at 5/18. I remain,

Your servant,

John II

S.L. Toddard| 5.18.09 @ 10:45AM

"At the same time, I don't think the general public has any more need to see photographs of rape or murder in the military context than we do in the civilian"

Whether they "need" to is irrelevant - they have the right to. You can choose to not look at the photos, but we have an *open government*, the actions of which are presumed open to the public unless there are compelling reasons to keep them secret. There are none here - the faces of the captives abused can be redacted, and - obviously - that they reflect poorly on the US gov't is not a compelling reason.

S.L. Toddard| 5.18.09 @ 10:52AM

"Here's your assignment. Read the (short) Mark Sanford entry on "It's Up to Us." Then read the "blackelkspeaks" response. Then jump into the fray and tell us all what's on your mind."

I find that a lot of conservatives are "rediscovering" their conservative principles, now that doing so will help obstruct a Democratic administration. So I take most such rallying calls with a grain of salt. The Tea Parties being a case in point. Sanford is usually on-point with this sort of thing though, and I agree with him here wholeheartedly - that's the entire point of demanding the government be held accountable under the law when they violate it - "to halt the relentless drive of government to encroach on our liberty". An objective which you all seem to oppose, unless of course the government being halted is headed by a Democrat.

S.L. Toddard| 5.18.09 @ 11:19AM

As for blackelkspeaks, I don't believe Lincoln "preserved the Union", and he did not fight the Civil War to free the slaves, but I understand what Sanford is trying to do with that and the Rosa Parks reference. Trying to make the GOP more palatable to traditional or knee-jerk Democrats. It never works, and I wouldn't have used that language either. I think it's all beside the point ultimately, which is that yes Americans should be trying to halt gov't encroachment on their Liberty - and the best way to start is to expose gov't lawbreaking and hold those lawbreakers accountable. For one cannot simultaneously claim it's our duty to halt gov't encroachment on our Liberties while also refusing to hold gov't accountable for their encroachment on our Liberties.

Tony| 5.22.09 @ 12:52PM

The issue on using such "enhanced interrogation techniques" extends to the day when the domestic police start using them on the neighborhood drug dealer or pick pocket. We are supposed to be a nation of laws with due process being the one thing that separates us from the third world. Once we authorize the use of something on others for military purposes, it's pretty easy for some rogue sheriff to make the case that we should use it on a gang member or anyone else for that matter. We become a society in which using these methods become routine. What happens when your mom gets water boarded? Your child who through his or her own stupidity, got into trouble? Because we're angry at the terrorists, we rush to use techniques they use. But, don't we have better weapons? Better intel? More sophisticated and advanced strategies? Let's just whip people against a wall and drown them til they talk. That seems to be the prevailing wisdom of the right. How do we know that's as effective as a well placed mole? I'd rather sacrifice a life and stay on the right side of law, then become the animals those people are and will always be.

Wholesale Lingerie| 9.5.09 @ 9:44PM

sexy lingerie lingerie

Wholesale Lingerie| 9.5.09 @ 9:44PM

sexy lingerie lingerie

Wedding Dresses| 9.9.09 @ 10:18AM

Hi, everybody here, I just spentWedding Dresses
Designer Wedding Gowns
more than 1000 USD in and bought one gift for my wife, I think it’s worth and the bag drives my wife crazy.

123123| 9.15.09 @ 6:48AM

cheap wedding dresses
wholesale wedding dresses

Lingerie| 9.17.09 @ 9:43PM

sexy lingerie wholesale lingerie