Intellegence services have done a great service to the free world by stopping any further attacks. Going after the people who have done what they were asked and expected to do for our safety is wrong. If the rules of engagement are changed by those who do not enjoin the fight, then those who do will quit, and then we have a situation liken to the problems of Viet Nam, a war we could not win, bot because we could not defeat them, but because the media stole our honor over a few who did wrong because they were frustrated with the way they were protrayed and treated by the liberals who took over and made it a mess they were not there to fix the problems of social injustice of the people who wanted freedom.
Independent’s Day
Obama doesn't want to look back, but Attorney General Eric Holder may probe Bush-era torture anyway.
Published Jul 11, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Jul 20, 2009
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Posted By: eddymontana @ 09/26/2009 8:41:07 AM
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Posted By: mjkoch @ 08/24/2009 7:37:19 AM
The fact that President Obama put methods in place to insure that torture and abuse never happens again apparently is not enough for the liberals who want to emasculate our intelligence agencies. No sane person will ever want to join the CIA, NSA, or DIA, for fear that their actions, in defense of our country, will put them in a prison cell.
The folks who celebrated the release of the terrorist who brought down the plane over Lockerbie Scotland, the murderers from Al Queda, Hamas, and Hezbollah, and the terrorist States of Iran, Syria, North Korea, and Russia must all be celebrating the liberal democrats of America destroying our country for them.
The liberals always blame the victim and never blame the perpetrator. The valiant men and women who work for our intelligence agencies deserve better than to be thrown to the wolves. We are in a war with people who want to destroy us and we must use every means at our disposal to defeat them before they use a weapon of mass destruction on our country and only a fool believes that these groups have given up trying to do that.
Some day, the fact that 3,000 Americans will murdered on 911 will be forgotten because the next terrorist act will dwarf that number many times over in the dead men, women, and children whose lives were snuffed out by evil people. The reason for this will be because we are now trying to blindfold and tie the hands behind their backs of our intelligence personnel and then send them out to try and defend us, and that will only seek to greatly aid those who seek our end.
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Posted By: excaliburgc @ 08/24/2009 6:11:43 AM
Watch this video and it will scare you.
Bush and Obama are just puppets to the New World Order
Christians time is near
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw
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Posted By: excaliburgc @ 08/24/2009 6:10:14 AM
Not a chance in God's Green Earth. You know as Bush worked For the new world order so does Obama.Watch Video It may scare you.Don't the bible warn us of this order.Who but the banks and wall street have the power to take over.Who has been running the worlds affairs,How does the Federal reserve cause the financial problem we currently have and get bailed out.
where did trillions from the US Treasury Go?
Watch and Fear
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw
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Posted By: Muggs McGinnis @ 08/05/2009 12:01:43 PM
Bush and Cheney should be the last people investigated. The investigation of crimes perpetrated at all levels of a large organization must follow the hierarchy, from the bottom to the top.
Begin questioning those people who had the least authority. Initially, be generous with legal pardons in return for full disclosure, cooperation, and sworn testimony. Be less generous with pardons as the investigation works up the line of command. The people with the greatest authority must bear the greatest responsibility. In general, above the lowest levels of the command hierarchy, actions and policies initiated by an individual on his or her own initiative are not pardonable.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) established in South Africa after the abolition of apartheid provides a model for exposing the truth. A TRC immunizes from prosecution many of the people whose hands performed the crimes. Sometimes it's more important to expose the truth than to exact retribution.
Because cooperation offers opportunity for legal immunity, pardons, and/or plea bargains, self interest encourages individuals to pass the hot potato... any criminal acts one can show were ordered or promoted from those higher in the command hierarchy, pass on to them.
This tends to build evidence that rolls upward:
??? Privates and other individuals at the bottom of the command hierarchy provide testimony of the orders and guidance given to them.
??? The military officers and civilian officials (such as CIA officers) respond to the results of this testimony and add their own facts.
??? Generals and Cabinet Secretaries must answer for their actions and for their inactions. We cannot allow the powerful to use those below them as scapegoats.
??? And so, the investigation proceeds upward.
Done properly, this investigation will build and roll upward like a tidal wave, the evidence and charges built into a solid & interwoven mass that convinces and outrages the public and overwhelms any defense.
The people most guilty, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, and Karl Rove must have no options for pardon or immunity and only the most restricted options for plea bargain.
Hit Cheney and Bush at the same time. Get GW frightened and he'll roll over on Cheney in an instant... he's a coward and driven entirely by self-interest. Get Cheney & Bush & the others in a situation where they see each other as liabilities, not friends or compatriots.
The essence of democracy is that the citizens hold the authority and bear the responsibility for the actions, and inactions, of the nation. If we citizens are kept ignorant of the wrongs perpetrated in our name, we cannot guide our nation and our democracy cannot prosper.
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Posted By: john181818@msn.com @ 07/11/2009 2:47:00 PM
Holder needs to simply remember that when he swore the oath of office he swore that oath to benefit the American people in what he does, or doesn't, do. Unfortunately I believe that enough things have poked above the surface that an investigation needs to occur if we are to remain a nation of laws.
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Posted By: acre1964@tds.net @ 08/02/2009 11:15:29 PM
In this country with all of our faults we still do have the right to freedon of speeck. If we were in any other country and posting coments like this we would be killed or worst. There is one thing that i do really know that God /Jesus do live and the most importian things is venagence is thires. As we sit here getting out our petty differances and venting about how this is wrong and this is wright remember God really is in control. I wrote a book called my mustard seads and maybe some day when this book is published most of you will see how much one person can make a differance.
This is not a pluge for my book because this book may never even get published but I have learned dont Judge someone else unless your perpaired to be Judged yourself. vent and get out your fursations about our goverment just remember there is someone up above. God bless By Shawn Acre
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Posted By: bar5608 @ 07/20/2009 2:18:45 PM
Regardless of whether Holder is conflicted about appointing a spedial prosecutor, this is, was, and should remain a Nation of Laws, not personalities. WE must clean up the Mess Bush left behind before we can think about moving ahead.
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Posted By: earthorbitsthesun @ 07/21/2009 12:22:17 AM
You are so right we should, but yet can not clean up the mess which is currently destroying our county.
We are on a down hill run, the cause is still in power Holder is no more then a marionette incapable of doing is job!
Could you imagine the destruction wrought on this country if he were to do his job; can they even impeach half of Congress?
This shard is comparable to fixing a hinge while the house burns down, and nothing but a smoke screen for a failed Administration.
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Posted By: jps-mm @ 07/20/2009 7:13:19 AM
Bürgerrechtsverletzungen schwerster Art in Deutschland
The Merkle is seriously abusing the trust that the voters put in her four years ago in 2005. Moreover, the Merkle - in office for four years - supports the perpetrators in order to ensure that these criminals can continue to violate human rights. It's even worse: The human right situation has drastically deteriorated since the Merkle came into power.
The UN-commission in charge of the protection of human rights caracterized the Merkle's report about the human right situation in Germany as "insufficient". In an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, however, German journalists don't dare to broach the difficult human right situation in Germany and to mention the perpetrators of most severe human right violations. It is not astonishing that the Merkle who is personally responsible for the drastic degradation of the human right situation in Germany is not criticized at all for the further deterioration.
The Merkle is personally involvend in most severe human right violations. It's time to demand the Merkle to stop human right violations immediately.
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Posted By: earthorbitsthesun @ 07/18/2009 5:17:22 PM
Attorney General Holder, hmmmm, let me see; this guy is an F'n joke! Holder is going to probe Bush-era torture, ah-duh, we just had one of our largest economic crashes in the Nations history which went Global and the only thing e can think to do is investigate torture?
No, wait, he's the man! Since per this articles statement he serves the Law and President it all makes sense, Obama would also have to explain why he also took so many bribes from Fannie Mae!
Holder would do best just to be another of this Administrations "Lame Ducks", instead of Grand standing!
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Posted By: acre1964@tds.net @ 07/18/2009 12:46:02 PM
Listen please,
I was having sizures for years before my brain surgery and here is something i wrote back then is this still true today?The Bi-Polar Nation
In America right now we have the extreme left and right running the show.
The cable news is either Fox on the right and CNN on the left.
We need something in the middle.
Everyone is just looking for ratings and doesn???t care about the truth.
We have shock jocks running the show.
Ever since 911 we have been pulled one way or the other.
Wake up America and see what I mean
It is all rating and money, but who cares about the truth
Well I care about the truth and that is why I am writing this.
Watch ???On Common Ground ??? episode # 125 and see if you agree.
God Bless America
The Home of the Brave
Land of the free
Not land of the extreme left or right
This is the land of middle class
Building the American dream
The middle class rules
Not the people telling you Gay is Okay and have a parade
Or the people telling you give me your money and you will be saved
Wake up and think for yourself America
We need people not willing to sell out your fellow American for a buck or two
Or lie to you and say give me your money and don???t worry about what you do
Because Jesus will save you.
You can???t buy your way into heaven or sin you way out of hell.
They are total contradiction to what I have learned in my life
Open your mind and open your heart then look at what we are doing in this country.
I see plastic and lairing people trying to sell you and I a bill of goods that you can smell coming miles away.
Jesus is there and don???t forget that, but that doesn???t mean
Jump off a building because someone says Jesus says it???s okay.
Use your brains and follow your heart.
Turn off Bart Simpson then read some books and get smart.
Stop these idiots from tearing our country apart.
My two cents today
By Shawn Acre
12-10-07
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Posted By: Lee Holmes @ 07/17/2009 7:25:13 PM
''Elitism and stupidity''.
Todays St.Louis Post Dispatch focuses on the ongoing series of ''tea party''protests [ that even Pelosi is no longer calling ''astroturfed'' as there are simply too many of them orchestrated by livid Americans rather than shadowy ''Rupe Murdoch/FOX '' figures], to settle upon the one carried out this morning in front of Democrat Sen.Claire McCaskills St. Louis office.
The protesters, arranged along a public street, are herded by cops away from the proximity of the office after hysteric McCaskill staffers raised an Incipient Rebellion Panic alarm and hauled in the peelers to remove the peaceful protesters. The stupidity of McCaskills actions has not gone un-noticed, and has only served to galvanize more Americans to camp out in front of their offices during the congressional summer break and raise more hell. [ the patent constitutionality of such protests in this manner is something that McCaskill has apparently ignored].
Adding to the stupidity is one Democrat Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio whose staff looked out of the window of his Cleveland office and asked ''why more of these protesters were not at work''?
Heres why Dennis.
Ohio: 11.1 % Unemployment US Dept. of Labor June Figures. 2009.
CNN July 17,2009: ''American Anger At Taxes Brewing:Tax Revolts Breaking Out All Over''
Less Hope ,More Change.
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Posted By: ok4u @ 07/17/2009 3:08:28 PM
Some still don't get it. Holder isn't going to go against Obama. He is the president's man at the Justice Dept, doing what the president wants. Should it not work out, the pretension that Holder is "independent" simply lets Obama off the hook.
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Posted By: johngaltnevadacity @ 07/17/2009 1:32:07 PM
The Bush Administration worked overtime to obstruct the administration of justice, the US Judicial system. He made Judges dependent upon his will alone for the tenure of their offices. George W. Bush and his Cabinet of Advisors abdicated government here while waging illegal war on foreign shores claiming we were under his protection.
Democratic action agasint the Congress. Arrest and prosecute the Bush Administration on charges of obstruction of justice leading to torture, war crimes, and waging an economic war against the American electorate.
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Posted By: jordan c. fan @ 07/17/2009 8:25:06 AM
I find the following comment very amusing: "Obama doesn't want to look back, but Attorney General Eric Holder may probe Bush-era torture anyway." Just what make you think there are any difference between Obamer and his (Be)Holder. They breath the same nose!
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Posted By: Lee Holmes @ 07/15/2009 2:15:44 PM
"Bear in mind that these are not foreign ''enemy combatants'' we are discussing.
...these were American citizens...."
And this matters because...?
Because of a little matter known as the US Constitution, especially in its 4th and 5th Amendments.
You forget that the USSC allowed military tribunals for enemy combatants within 5th Amendment guidelines in HAMDI only in 2005. Not 1994. As these were demonstrative American citizens, their denial of these rights [as only Koresh was named in the serving warrent] , makes what Reno pulled this much more obscene. You want guntoting SWAT cowboys showing up on your doorstep with guns blazing, be my guest. The crap they pulled was patently unconsititutional by any legal standard. Hence the phony show trials of the surviving Branch Davidians where all went free.[and hence the continuing secrecy surrounding the refusal of Holder to release these documents as they no more have a bearing on ''the national security of the United States'' than quantum physics as these apply to pie-eating contests].-
Posted By: Hagbard Celine @ 07/15/2009 2:35:12 PM
"Because of a little matter known as the US Constitution, especially in its 4th and 5th Amendments."
Oddly enough, amendment V makes no distinction between citizens and non-citizens. It lists what the government cannot do to a person accused of a crime.-
Posted By: Lee Holmes @ 07/16/2009 4:58:45 PM
Yet such a distinction, as I previously proferred, was not made until the SCOTUS decision of 2005 as it applied to ''foreign combatants''. Such a debate could not have been in evidence in 1993-94 as there was absolutely none as these applied to American citizens, and also predated the WOT, with the proviso that the high court returns to these discussions as the result of ,again, the overextending of law enforcement entities, whether these be ''no-knock ''raids, ''roadblocks'' or other devices deemed by the high court as a means by which due process is denied American citizens.
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Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/15/2009 2:41:30 PM
Lee, in some ways the position of treating foreign combatants with substantially less dignity and respect for due process than American citizens is a nonstarter for liberals. Trials for foreign nationals are not subject to the Constitutional rights accorded our citizens in a legal sense, but the notion that this allows us to morally and in good conscience disregard due process altogether in trying them, or disregard basic human rights in confining them, is off the table for us.
Yes, Waco was wrong. No, legally and technically foreign citizens do not have the guaranteed rights Americans do in our society. But there is a question of basic human rights at stake here. It is not a particularly good policy, with respect to our reputation and world standing, to focus on those rights which foreign combatants do NOT have, but rather which basic human rights should be assigned by morally decent societies to all living people, even captured prisoners.
George Washington advised his troops to treat any captured British soldiers with honor and dignity, this at the Battle of Trenton, around Christmastime, during the Revolutionary War. If that man could find it in him to inform his troops to treat the British with respect, in the freezing winter, with long odds against him and his forces and facing the prospect of receiving no such compassion from the opposing troops, I think we must take it upon ourselves to follow his example and treat our captured soldiers with a regard for human rights..
And no, those at Waco should not have been greeted with the level of force used by ATF. That wasn't right either. Holder and Reno have admitted error - i.e., were it to take place again, they would not have chosen the path they did. What we ALL need to do is move forward. I don't think Holder should prosecute Bush-era officials, I don't think that Holder and Reno should be prosecuted. We need to get away from retribution, away from revenge of all kinds, and get back to upholding the tradition of honor that Washington set during our Revolution.
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Posted By: rob2357 @ 07/12/2009 8:51:04 PM
Since he wants to go back to look at Bush, let's see if he will investigate all the campaign fund raising violations of Obama's. Maybe he would like to investigate the crimes against the American people that happend at Ruby Ridge, ID or Waco, TX that caused domestic terrorism like the Oklahoma City bombing. But wait there's more; the violations that occurred during the Senate appointment process in Illinois by Chief of Staff Rham Emmanual. The electioneering by Acorn.
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No, of'course not, investigating those things would cause Holder to be even handed and ignore his double standard. He wants to go after enhanced interigation techniques that should have been used during the Clinton years. Had they been used there would be about 4000 fewer dead Americans on 9/11 and we would have never had to invade Afganistan or Iraq.
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This guy Holder and his ilk are toal morons.-
Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/12/2009 10:23:44 PM
Waco happened when the ATF and FBI made a bad call as to how they were going to arrest David Koresh. Koresh, however, was regularly molesting and impregnating teenage girls. I don't see why anyone would want to hold him up as a standard-bearer for American civil liberties and arms rights - under our laws, at the very least he needed to be stopped from sleeping with underage women. Is that someone you really want to hold up as an example of why the Feds shouldn't intrude? No, leave him alone, let him take advantage of his female followers, that would be better? Waco was obviously a fiasco - but saying that Koresh had absolute rights to his own sovereignty and that the authorities had no reason to attempt to make an arrest borders on lunacy. Other pedophiles are routinely arrested, some with guns, and it's usually hailed as police heroism, especially if there are guns involved. So what makes Waco an example of federal tyranny instead?
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Posted By: rob2357 @ 07/13/2009 12:54:29 AM
Hey you moronic idiot, The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (abbreviated ATF) is a specialized federal law enforcement agency and regulatory organization within the United States Department of Justice which Holder and Reno were running at that time. So let me get this straight, under your hair brained logic it's okay to go after a pedophiles even if you have to kill 78 people he is manipulating or taking advantage of sexually. Put down your crack pipe and wake you moron. You don???t kill 78 people to get one person. The only way to get away with that logic is through political correctness which bends rational think. What the hell, Hitler used political correctness as a twisted logical means to an end. You???re saying its okay for Holder to do the same? To make the same moronic exceptions when religion and race is involved as Hitler did? You???re a dangerous thinker. The Left is really bent and heading down a slippery slope. You tell me something, I???m sure if Bush 43's AG went after a black militant Muslim for multiple marriages or sex with under aged girls, and killed 78 other Muslims in the process, the left would be crying about civil liberties and asking for an investigation. Why should the standard be different for Holder or Reno? Oh, I forgot they are democrats! They get a pass! THIS IS CALLED TYRANNY!
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Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/13/2009 10:59:32 AM
My friend, do you know how that conflict ACTUALLY ended? The Davidians set their OWN COMPOUND ON FIRE, which was the same fire that eventually killed the ones that died. Saying that the "Feds killed them" is a really ignorant and hostile way to put it. They set their compound on fire and then died in the fire. If Koresh had been willing to cooperate peacefully with authorities and respond to allegations of child molestation, nothing would have happened.
What am I supposed to do - blame the Feds because the Davidians accidentally burned themselves to death while helping Koresh resist arrest? I haven't shed any tears over the Weathermen blowing themselves up when they were trying to bomb Federal property, either.
You want to make it seem like the Feds gunned down innocent people, exulting in it like the Nazis did, and it is NOT OKAY for you to rewrite history like that. Nobody in the Federal government wanted that situation to happen as it did, nobody wanted so much as a single death to take place. BUT THE DAVIDIANS SET THEIR OWN COMPOUND ON FIRE!!!!!!! Are they not responsible for that all of a sudden? They were blameless and innocent in their own deaths, even if those deaths came at their hand? That's a really irresponsible, angry way to look at the situation.
No, I don't think what happened to the Davidians was okay, it was a badly, badly bungled raid. At the same time - what were the authorities supposed to do instead? The Davidians had closets full of automatic assault weaponry. Should the Feds just have gone, "Oh, never mind then", and left them alone, so Koresh could keep sleeping with teenagers as part of his messianic routine?
I'll tell you what - you tell me how you think that situation should have been handled.-
Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/13/2009 11:18:44 AM
Seriously, I can't wrap my mind around this. Waterboarding people who may or may not be innocent in the name of interrogation is done with enthusiasm, but it's not okay that the Feds besieged the compound of a known pedophile, full of assault weapons? And because the people in the compound set it on fire themselves and then burned to death, it's okay to treat the Feds as murderers?
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Posted By: rob2357 @ 07/13/2009 12:21:31 PM
Your mind is obviously too simple to wrap around anything let alone what really happened that day! The tactical team for the ATF in the Waco raid was headed by Richard Rogers, who had previously been criticized for his actions at the Ruby Ridge incident. The ATF came in and simply started shooting. The ATF agents had their blood type written on the necks and forearms in case of the need for a blood transfusion after injury in a pitched battle (this was done at the suggestion of a military advisor to the ATF). The ATF agents were totally loaded for bear and made absolutely no attempt to grab Koresh when he was away from the compound or negotiate surrender. It was the ATF who started this and Holder ran the agency that ran the ATF! You have bought the Federal Government line that it was anyone???s fault except the ATF???s. Total lies!
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Within a minute of the raid starting, the Davidian Wayne Martin, a Harvard-educated lawyer with a wife and 7 children, who for 7 years was an assistant professor at North Carolina Central University School of Law, called Emergency services, pleading for them to stop shooting. The resident asked for a ceasefire, and audiotapes record him saying "Here they come again!" and "That's them shooting, that's not us!"
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On April 19th at 5:00am, it was cold! The Federal Government had cut all power and water in an attempt to freeze and starve them out. The Branch Davidians did what any humans would do; they turned on their kerosene space heaters and worked to keep them running so that they would be comfortable. The ATF began driving tanks around the compound punching holes in the walls of the complex in different areas to pump more and more tear gas into the compound ??? this is a fact. The morons running the FBI and the ATF continued this process until a fire was ignited when one of Holder???s and Reno???s brown shirted idiots driving a tank, ran over the kerosene heaters the Branch Davidians were using to heat the place. Then with the 50 mph winds the place quickly went up in flames.
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The BS stories of multiple fires started at the same time are just a lie by your hero Holder at the Clinton justice department to cover up the gun happy jack booted thugs at the ATF. Honestly, it suprises me that this kind of crap always happens with democrats in power and you people never see the light. Name me one such occurance that happend while a republican was in office?-
Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/14/2009 12:05:05 AM
"Name me one such occurance that happend while a republican was in office?"
Kent State shootings, under Richard Nixon. It was the military in that case, not ATF. But - as usual - there's hate enough to find on both sides, if you're looking for it.
I'm tired of all the hate. I don't feel like hating people. I feel like I can support the defense of America and speak out against terrorism without despising our enemies. I don't think we can defeat violence by adopting a permanent attitude of anger ourselves. That's just how I feel. If you hate me, and I hate you back in response, then that's one person added to the list of people with angry grudges in the world. If you hate me and I don't hate you back, that's one less person on that list. Doesn't mean I won't defend myself if attacked, but I'm tired of seeing the cycle of violence.-
Posted By: rob2357 @ 07/15/2009 11:13:52 AM
As usual, I have to tell you to get your facts straight! Kent's Mayor, Leroy Satrom - a democrat - (known for his "kink in the ass" style) declared a state of emergency on May 2 1970 and, later that afternoon, asked Ohio Governor to send the National Guard to Kent to help maintain order. Mayor Satrom worked directly with the National Guard in directing them to the campus and is who encouraged the aggression by the National Guardsmen against Americans protestors that led to the shooting. Nixon and his AG had nothing to do with it. National Guard is state military force - not federal. Although today it acts as a reserve to the federal armed forces. Back in 1970 we had a draft.
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Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/15/2009 12:18:02 PM
Thanks for the info. It still doesn't make me hate Holder. And I've seen plenty of the GOP these days making mutterings about "getting your guns" and the like.
It doesn't give me a lot of trust that you guys are suddenly the party of American civil liberties and personal freedoms, not after Bush's warrantless wiretapping and Michelle Malkin telling people to turn in their neighbors and various associated attitudes. If you really are the party of civil liberties, civil rights, non-intrusion into American lives, then you have some policies to repudiate.-
Posted By: rob2357 @ 07/15/2009 1:09:27 PM
When Holder sends his jackbooted thugs come to your neighborhood and start murdering your neighbors, maybe you get caught in the cross fire maybe not, it's possible you'll see him in a different light. With all the power of the patriot act Bush never committed the crimes against Americans that Holder and Reno committed against Americans. So you tell me you trust Holder more? You will not only lose your freedom under him, you may lose your life. Facts are stuburn things! Don't be a fool!
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Posted By: rob2357 @ 07/15/2009 1:15:40 PM
opps....that's "stubburn"
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Posted By: Hagbard Celine @ 07/15/2009 2:37:28 PM
"stubborn".
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Posted By: rob2357 @ 07/15/2009 3:47:56 PM
Thanks for making my point, yet again....
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Posted By: Hagbard Celine @ 07/16/2009 12:23:12 PM
What, that you're illiterate?
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Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/15/2009 3:23:28 PM
I'll let you in on a secret, rob - or maybe it's not that secret. The cops love kicking the *** out of people. That was true under Gonzalez, it was true under Holder, it was true under the 1850s New York political machine. I would bet my life it was true in ancient Sumeria too. One of the reasons I'm so against explicit torture policies for interrogaton and et cetera is that I know plenty of that crap happens all the time, every day under the radar. Cops abuse people in the course of their line of work, even if it's against the rules. Always have, always probably will. When you give them explicit authorization to do so, as the Bush-era officials did, they'll just throw away any restraint they may have had and start inflicting some of the highest levels of human agony possible on people.
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Posted By: rob2357 @ 07/15/2009 4:34:26 PM
Look Vig, this all comes down to the definition of torture. I my opinion actions defined as torture should leaves permanent physical scaring (such as sawing a person's head off or burning them alive or pulling out teeth or sliding bamboo under their fingernails). I'm assuming in your opinion, any physical interrogation technique that leaves psychological scarring or causes an ulcer or someother internal physical aliement that is temporary (e.g. nightmares, sleep deprivation, nervousness, upset tummy, headache, sinus post nasal drip, muscle cramps, et cetera) is torture. The problem is, using what is likely your definition leaves no objective benchmark. Unlike my benchmark which does. I understand that waterboarding is very enhanced, but do you actually think loud music and sleep depravation or a cold jail cell is torture? Or do you just want to use the lightest standard because you hate Bush and Cheney for other reason and it makes you feel better to call them tortureous criminals?
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Posted By: Hagbard Celine @ 07/16/2009 10:53:25 AM
"Look Vig, this all comes down to the definition of torture. "
To be precise, this all comes down to the AG's definition of torture.-
Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/16/2009 12:21:44 PM
Yes, I would say that's accurate.
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Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/15/2009 8:52:51 PM
" I'm assuming in your opinion, any physical interrogation technique that leaves psychological scarring or causes an ulcer or someother internal physical aliement that is temporary (e.g. nightmares, sleep deprivation, nervousness, upset tummy, headache, sinus post nasal drip, muscle cramps, et cetera) is torture. "
That's because you're an ass, rob. You don't like me, so you have to assume things about me to justify that dislike to yourself or others, even if it doesn't happen to be true.
This is not fair to me. I'm tired of it. I've made attempt after attempt to discuss things here, and all you want to do is insult my fortitude and imply I have no stomach for even the most minor forms of pain that prisoners go through. It's wrong, it's unfair, and I'm sick of your *** accusatory attitude. No, I don't think it "doesn't leave a mark" should be our definition of what makes something torture. I dare you to find the courage to go look at prisoners in our jails everywhere, particularly Abu Ghraib, and see if things routinely happen to them that leave them with a wide degree of physical marks. They used to call waterboarding "water torture" for a few thousand years before the neocons up and decided it wasn't. And yes, I do believe blaring music in someone's cell and depriving them of sleep for days at a time is torture, you try it on yourself if you don't believe me. I think locking people in living coffins is torture. I think feeding them rotten meat is torture.
But I'm not sure I want to talk about this anymore. I've tried, tried, tried, tried to reach across the aisle here, explain why I might agree or disagree without insulting your intelligence or having to mischaracterize you, and all I get back is this kind of contempt. I see it in the tea party crowd, too. So do whatever you want, rob. I'm not interested in getting verbally sh*t on anymore. It's been days. Just understand that if you treat other people with contempt, you give them no reason to want to treat you with anything else either. I increasingly feel like you can take your whole movement and go right to hell, because you don't seem interested in treating your fellow Americans with anything other than anger and bile. You give that, you're going to get it right back at you.
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Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/15/2009 3:06:10 PM
"When Holder sends his jackbooted thugs come to your neighborhood and start murdering your neighbors, maybe you get caught in the cross fire maybe not, it's possible you'll see him in a different light"
I don't have a massive cache of weapons with dubious paperwork, I'm not teaching my friends to see the government as an enemy, I cooperate with authorities when I have to and I'm not touching teenage girls. I have no idea about my neighbors, but they don't have their own compounds full of hiding places seven miles outside of town, either. It is very, very difficult for me to see anybody - Bush, Holder, Reno, Gonzalez, whoever - considering me important enough to waste an entire ATF battalion on.
Believe it or not, I am absolutely unsurprised at the notion that - at that level of federal law enforcement - the Feds are a bunch of paramilitarized adrenaline-pumping bullies with carte blanche to do what they want and pick up the pieces later. I also don't know that I ought to be worried about ATF busting through my window with tear gas grenades . Waco was a pretty damn extreme case.
Besides which, in some ways none of this is new, nor does any one person in Justice particularly own monopoly rights on coming down with the heavy hammer. ATF has been busting down doors of small-time drug dealers with battalions of cops in full riot suit gear for years and years and years. Hundreds or thousands of them, every year, and they are rarely accountable for anything. It doesn't make the papers. This happened under Bush, Clinton, Bush Sr, Reagan, Carter, Ford - any President since or including Nixon. It's an institutional thing - not even necessarily a partisan thing. One of the reasons ATF is hopped up on adrenaline and tear gas fumes all the time is because they're so locked into this trench-warfare drug war we have going on that the higher-ups are practically battle-crazed at this point. Minor criminals get beat up in jail ALL the time. People get raped, the guards go "F**k or fight". Making Waco out to be a serious aberration from the pattern of federal law enforcement erring on the shady side of abusing its power seems to me to be painting a rosy picture of the rest of reality. Truth be told, from the conversations I've had, just about anybody and everybody can get roughed up and often does get roughed up by guards in even city or county jails for minor offenses. If I want to be mad at Holder over Waco, should I be mad at him too for all the thousands of unreported cases of ATF jackbootery under the radar? Should I be mad at Gonzalez for presiding over a similar period of thousands more raids? Or how about every other Justice Department head?
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Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/13/2009 2:07:01 PM
One of the reasons I don't "see the light", by the way, is that I find your attitudes and explanations - full of violence towards your own countrymen yourself - to be less than holy...
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Posted By: rob2357 @ 07/13/2009 3:08:00 PM
Any so called "countryman" of mine (beit Holder or Mcveigh) who participates in the mass murder of my fellow countrymen (as Holder and McVeigh did) are no countrymen of mine. And as for those who defend them, I have nothing but contempt.
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Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/13/2009 6:23:17 PM
I don't have contempt for you because of your political views. I might disagree, but it's not the same thing. I wish I could ask the same courtesy of you.
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Posted By: rob2357 @ 07/15/2009 11:28:44 AM
Sorry, but the people (Holder and Reno) you defend were directly involved with killing Americans and then covering it up. To support such trampling of the individual rights of Americans and then sit in judgement of Bush 43 for trying to keep enemy combatants (governmentless terrorists) from doing the same thing to Americans, makes me want to vommit. Holder is a total joke and should never have been confirmed.
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Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/15/2009 12:14:50 PM
Then puke your guts out. I can't stand how you can't manage to express your opinions without nasty, snarling anger and without calling everyone who disagrees with you a moron. Go to town. If you're choking that much on your own rage, vomit until your stomach bleeds. I'd rather you didn't, but I can't do anything about it.
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Posted By: rob2357 @ 07/15/2009 1:18:08 PM
I just puked and it came out and landed on the floor in the image of Eric Holder......
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Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/13/2009 2:06:11 PM
"The ATF came in and simply started shooting. "
Prove it. Show me links and make me believe.
Here's what Wiki says:
"It is not known who fired the first shots, but each side later claimed it had been the other.[21] It is reported that the first firing occurred at the double front entry doors. (One door, riddled with bullet holes, was removed and lost very shortly after the siege's end). ATF agents stated that they heard shots coming from within the compound, while Branch Davidian survivors claimed that the first shots came from the ATF agents outside. One reason may have been the accidental discharge of a weapon by a member of the ATF personnel, the ATF opened fire with automatic weapons.[28] Other reports claim the first shots were fired by the ATF "dog team" sent to "neutralize" the dogs in the Davidian kennel. The written raid plans included diversionary gunfire from the helicopters, but the government claims those plans were not followed."
Now, Wikipedia can be and has repeatedly been wrong before, but so have a lot of commenters on these boards who report unsourced information. So make me believe that the government were nothing but villains here. Make me believe it was malice and murder instead of just a bungled, botched, poorly run government raid.-
Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/13/2009 2:08:11 PM
And tell me what you think the Feds should have done instead.
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Posted By: rob2357 @ 07/13/2009 2:55:09 PM
I did, they should have waited until Koresh was outside the compound and then picked him up on weapons violations. They should have searched all items going in for contraband and allowed womone and children to leave without threat of arrest or separation. This would be the exact oppositite of what the ATF did do. Why are you defending jack booted thugs who killed Americans. Was to ATF helping the children by killing them. With your logic, Tim McVeigh was justified in killing the kids at that day care in Oklahoma City. Don't you understand why McVeigh did that (I'm not justifying it just making the point), he did it to the Federal Building because the Federal agency - the ATF - did what they did at Ruby Ridge and Waco. Never in US History, except with the killing of the Native Americans and the rounding up of the Japenese had such a travesty been wrought on the American people and Holder was a part of it.
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And you want to defend him? Please do question me about my desire to see you harmed when you won't question Holder about his desire to see my fellow American's harmed.
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Only when it suits your politically correct prism will you condem such outrages and that makes you STUPID!-
Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/13/2009 3:18:37 PM
"I did, they should have waited until Koresh was outside the compound and then picked him up on weapons violations. "
That sounds great, as a matter of fact. I'll go along with that. Like I said, I don't think what happened was right. I think they used a howitzer to blow up a pebble and a lot of people got hurt. I still don't think Holder had any desire to see the fiasco happen the way it did, and again, it's the hate and paranoia that leads to the reprisals. I urge you to not get into the kind of thinking that led McVeigh to cross over into hate and paranoia of the government and do what he did. It can be easy to start out "in self defense" and end up bristling with weapons, waiting for the other side to make a move, and unintentionally terrifying and endangering other living Americans in your zeal to see the dead ones avenged.-
Posted By: rob2357 @ 07/15/2009 11:37:53 AM
I'm far from becoming a McVeigh but you should be more even handed in meating out "justce" (or not meating it out). Remember, "justice" is supposed to be objective. Political correctness makes it subjective and there is the real danger. PC is literally tearing this country apart because it allows certain behavior for some groups and disallows (and even persecutes) that same behavior in other groups. This is what Holder wants to practice on Bush 43.
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Posted By: rob2357 @ 07/13/2009 6:33:36 PM
Your mind is obviously too simple to wrap around anything let alone what really happened that day! The tactical team for the ATF in the Waco raid was headed by Richard Rogers, who had previously been criticized for his actions at the Ruby Ridge incident. The ATF came in and simply started shooting. The ATF agents had their blood type written on the necks and forearms in case of the need for a blood transfusion after injury in a pitched battle (this was done at the suggestion of a military advisor to the ATF). The ATF agents were totally loaded for bear and made absolutely no attempt to grab Koresh when he was away from the compound or negotiate surrender. It was the ATF who started this and Holder ran the agency that ran the ATF! You have bought the Federal Government line that it was anyone???s fault except the ATF???s. Total lies!
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Within a minute of the raid starting, the Davidian Wayne Martin, a Harvard-educated lawyer with a wife and 7 children, who for 7 years was an assistant professor at North Carolina Central University School of Law, called Emergency services, pleading for them to stop shooting. The resident asked for a ceasefire, and audiotapes record him saying "Here they come again!" and "That's them shooting, that's not us!"
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On April 19th at 5:00am, it was cold! The Federal Government had cut all power and water in an attempt to freeze and starve them out. The Branch Davidians did what any humans would do; they turned on their kerosene space heaters and worked to keep them running so that they would be comfortable. The ATF began driving tanks around the compound punching holes in the walls of the complex in different areas to pump more and more tear gas into the compound ??? this is a fact. The morons running the FBI and the ATF continued this process until a fire was ignited when one of Holder???s and Reno???s brown shirted idiots driving a tank, ran over the kerosene heaters the Branch Davidians were using to heat the place. Then with the 50 mph winds the place quickly went up in flames.
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The BS stories of multiple fires started at the same time are just a lie by your hero Holder at the Clinton justice department to cover up the gun happy jack booted thugs at the ATF. Honestly, it suprises me that this kind of crap always happens with democrats in power and you people never see the light. Name me one such occurance that happend while a republican was in office?
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Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/13/2009 11:20:31 AM
It actually makes me angry that you think the Feds "killed 78 people."
No. The DAVIDIANS killed 78 people. (Wiki says 76, but it doesn't really make a difference.) The Feds didn't set that compound on fire.-
Posted By: Hagbard Celine @ 07/14/2009 2:33:51 PM
No, the feds just showed up with armored vehicles and attempted an all-out assault on a compound for no discernable reason.
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Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/14/2009 10:46:03 PM
I and others had discerned the reason as credible accusations of pedophilia against the cult's leader, a stockpile of military-grade weapons with dubious paperwork, Koresh teaching his followers that the government was the enemy, and Koresh resisting calls to surrender himself peacefully. None of those things by itself is cause for an assault, but taken together they represent a very serious situation.
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Posted By: Hagbard Celine @ 07/15/2009 12:58:03 PM
Koresh jogged through town on a regular basis. He could have been arrested at any time. Instead, Janet Reno decided to send in the big guns...and we saw the result.
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Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/15/2009 1:09:42 PM
I don't disagree. It was a bad scene all around. Reno and the rest of the team blew it badly, and they know it. The fact that they know it does help me in not despising them for what happened.
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Posted By: rob2357 @ 07/15/2009 1:13:54 PM
Finally some sanity! I'm so proud to call you my countryman. Now if you'll only call for her and holder to hauled before a criminal court in the same manner your brethern on the left are calling for Bush and Cheney to be treated, we'll have made some real progrss.
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Posted By: Hagbard Celine @ 07/15/2009 2:37:00 PM
Janet Reno and Alberto Gonzales should both be tried and punished for their activities.
I'm not wild about John Ashcroft, but I can't see that he's responsible for any outright crimes. -
Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/15/2009 1:22:00 PM
Rob, I can't change what my brethren on the left are thinking. I can only express my own opinion - which is that I don't think this prosecution is a good idea, and neither is prosecuting Holder. In point of fact I have recently tried to speak out against retribution against Bush-era officials on Facebook with several friends who were furious with Obama over his decision to hold back the most recent batch of torture photos, about two weeks before this article was even written. If you took the time to come at me in a way that's less angry than you've been doing, we might be able to reach an accord. I'm open to the possibility that there were some very bad things that happened at Waco. I'm open to seeing the documentary that Lee Holmes mentioned - but when you come at me with insults and fury, the emotional reservoir I have to deal with this stuff drains and it makes it a lot harder to stay open.
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Posted By: olderwiser @ 07/13/2009 12:50:55 PM
Non compliance with a decent fire code.
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Posted By: SeattleGuy @ 07/13/2009 7:11:39 AM
rob2357- it is you who is the moron, rob. Bush started a needless war and killed hundreds of thousands to get one man. What a piece of garbage we had at the helm and you voted for that magot.
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Posted By: rob2357 @ 07/13/2009 1:12:36 PM
Hey Seattle guy, why don't you climb back under the slimy moss coated rocks from whence you came up there in Seattle! So which way do you want it handed to you - YOU MORON!
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I have not once defended any mistakes of Bush 43 (he was not perfect), except to say that if he should be investigated then Holder should be investigated too! Holder has been a germane part of more innocent Americans dying domestically then Bush 43. Bush 43 was only reacting to 8 years of the dumbass foreign policy of the Clinton administration. Don???t tell me you can???t remember the reasoning that went like this: ???oh we don???t want to offend anyone and we do want to pick up Osama Bin Laden in Sudan because it???s not legal??? (according to Jamie Gorelick another Justice Department Assistant AG hack who served with Holder under Clinton). What moronic foreign intelligence policy enabled this? It was the Holder/Reno/Gorelick who established a pre-Patriot Act legal "wall" of separation that prevented the foreign intelligence and criminal investigative communities from collaborating which led to a failure of the federal agencies to ???connect the dots???. Remember the call from the left to ???connect the dots??? ??? oh I???m sorry, you were likely hitting your crack pipe when that call went out! Of ???course when Bush 43 ???connected the dots??? and guess what, they led him to Afghanistan and Iraq and he achieved the ability to keep our country safe only to be sold out by people like you and others on the left for political gain so you can pass Cap and Trade and Nationalized Health Care. Don't try to BS me. I understand this is ALL ABOUT POWER AND CONTROL from the left???s perspective so you can enslave and control millions with your Enviro-Religion.
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I???m arguing that 9/11 would not have occurred and Bush 43 would not have gone into Afghanistan or Iraqi if Holder, Gorelick and Reno had handled the international terrorists the same way they handled their own fellow American citizens: shoot first and asked questions later. Let???s investigate that.
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You can thank Eric Holder , Jaime Gorelick and Janet Reno???s twisted logic of political correctness embedded in the Justice Department for 9/11 and everything since 9/11.
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Go ride your mountain bike off a cliff.-
Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/13/2009 2:03:24 PM
"Go ride your mountain bike off a cliff."
You need to stop wishing your countrymen dead because they disagree with you, and the right time to do it would be now.-
Posted By: rob2357 @ 07/13/2009 2:42:51 PM
Yes, I may wish those who would want to see me killed by the ATF dead. What makes you defend people like Holder who had a hand in killing innocent children? Your own stupidity!
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Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/13/2009 3:26:37 PM
This is the problem, here. You assume that because I condone Holder's role in Waco, I would condone the same thing done to you. I'm not making any value judgements, but I do believe there is something about the Davidians you identify or sympathize with. I don't wish the ATF on you. I didn't wish the ATF on the Davidians. You make the mistake of thinking that because I'm not still angry about it, I must have wanted things to happen exactly as they did. All things considered, I think the ATF itself would rather have been somewhere else themselves than in full gear, strapped to the teeth with tear gas grenades in tow, trying to arrest a group of heavily armed, frightened, angry anti-government survivalists with allegations of sex offenses against the leader.
In many ways it's the same with al-Qaeda and the Gitmo detainees. There are those who wish genuine reprisal harm on them, and then there are those who are scared, angry, uncertain, and confused, and who advocate bristling to the teeth with weapons and coming down on them like a hammer too. I would like to advocate that all parties involved step away from the edge. -
Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/13/2009 3:19:39 PM
Whoever said I ever wished the ATF on you? I don't wish any such thing!
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Posted By: dannevada @ 07/13/2009 12:37:38 PM
Seattleguy what is the matter with you? You are so angry why don't you go down to the pier and smoke a fatty and comb your dred locks.
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Posted By: Hagbard Celine @ 07/14/2009 2:41:10 PM
"Maybe he would like to investigate the crimes against the American people that happend at Ruby Ridge"
Okay. That happened while Bush Sr was president.
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Posted By: John Dough @ 07/16/2009 11:15:18 AM
If anyone believes Holder is acting on his own then I will sell you the bridge to nowhere. This is typical Obama he trots out his foot soldiers to do the dirty work to keep his image squeaky clean. Just another day in Obama paradise. GOP in 2010 and anybody but Obama in 2012.
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Posted By: Hagbard Celine @ 07/16/2009 12:22:28 PM
If he wanted his image squeaky clean, he'd be publicly backing Holder. What Obama is doing is trying to keep everybody happy, which of course means that he's pissing everybody off.
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Posted By: downsteamjim @ 07/14/2009 8:35:30 PM
Holder could investigate groups signing up Micky Mouse to vote, tax cheats in high office, Black Panthers intimidating people at polling places. But no lets go back to events that happened years ago and help thugs who love to kill innocent Americans. At least it might distract the public from the failed economic plans of the Democrats including his boss.
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Posted By: KillianFlorida @ 07/14/2009 8:53:56 PM
So you're going to compare voting issues.......with torture. Nice. Logicial.......in a downsteamjim kind of way.
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Posted By: downsteamjim @ 07/15/2009 10:59:15 PM
Please remember that more people drowned in Ted 'conscience of the senate' Kennedy's car than at Gitmo.
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Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/15/2009 1:26:37 PM
Here, Rob, let's ask a question.
Would you agree to support investigating Bush-era torture if I agreed to support investigating Reno and Holder? I'm not opposed to the idea. We have to have consistency in our justice system, or it doesn't work.
I personally don't think we ought to do either. It's going to make our government officials afraid to try to do their jobs, as both the parties in question thought, according to their own lights, that they were simply doing their jobs. I think we need to let the torture investigations go, write off Waco as a really horrible mistake even as we acknowledge that it resulted in dead innocents, and move on. But I'd like to hear what you think of both ideas - either prosecute both, or let both go. Which would you choose?-
Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/15/2009 8:53:55 PM
*crickets*
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Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/13/2009 11:44:10 PM
Leave it alone, Mr. Holder. We don't need to drag the country down this road. It'll drive a wedge right in the middle of the nation, and we're split enough already.
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Posted By: Hagbard Celine @ 07/14/2009 2:34:34 PM
So it is your opinion that America cannot face its own justice?
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Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/14/2009 10:47:31 PM
Right now? No, maybe not. This country is divided enough as it is and we need to heal. I don't particularly want conservatives to feel that this is a witchhunt. Ford pardoned Nixon and took heat for it, and I think Holder needs to let it go in the name of looking forward.
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Posted By: Hagbard Celine @ 07/15/2009 1:01:35 PM
"Right now? No, maybe not."
Then the country needs to be fixed.
"This country is divided enough as it is and we need to heal."
That's like saying a cancer victim doesn't need the pain of chemotherapy, just some morphine to make him feel better.
" I don't particularly want conservatives to feel that this is a witchhunt. Ford pardoned Nixon and took heat for it, and I think Holder needs to let it go in the name of looking forward."
And how's that working out? As a result of that pardon, no president has been or ever will be accountable for their actions.-
Posted By: Vigilance @ 07/15/2009 8:50:25 PM
I respectfully disagree. But if it seems important to you to publicly investigate it, then support that position.
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