The IG Report Delay May Actually Be a Good Sign
As Spencer reported yesterday, the CIA has delayed the release of newly declassified sections of the IG Report until Wednesday, July 1.
Now, as someone who has long been harping on the importance of the IG Report, I also remain very skeptical that this next release will be the momentous event many are suggesting it will be. Given the CIA’s almost comical stinginess with declassification of late, I see no reason to believe that we’ll get much substantively new in next week’s declassification.
That said, the delay has actually made me temper that view, for a few reasons. First, look at the timeline.
June 17: The WaPo reports that the CIA is pushing the Obama Administration to keep descriptions of the torture used against detainee redacted. The same article reported that CIA "has not yet forwarded the document to the White House or the Justice Department for final review."
June 19: The CIA gets its first delay–to June 26, citing the need for an interagency review.
June 26: The CIA gets its second delay–to July 1, again citing the need for an interagency review.
As I said last week, it was clear we weren’t going to get the IG Report on the first deadline, June 19, because if the White House and DOJ hadn’t yet gotten the document by June 17, there was no way their review was going to be complete by June 19. But here we are a week later, and they’re still citing the interagency review process.
They way I figure it, if the White House and DOJ had agreed with CIA’s declassification decisions, they ought to have been able to review the CIA’s declassifications in one week’s time. But that review has now apparently taken over a week, suggesting some difference of opinion on the declassifications. And assuming (given the precedent of the OLC memos) that Obama and Holder will be more inclined to declassification than the CIA, then I think the delay may suggest the White House and DOJ pushed CIA for greater disclosure. So from my perspective, the delay is actually a mildly promising sign.
And then there’s the timing. As a number of you have pointed out, releasing the report on July 1 sets up the classic pre-holiday document dump. What few journalists haven’t checked out for a long holiday weekend on July 2 yet won’t have much time to review the document before they do check out for a July 3 holiday. And, just as importantly, a lot of people are going to be out stocking up on firecrackers to celebrate American exceptionalism on July 2, rather than reading articles about torture. So whatever gets released next week will most likely fall through the cracks (except not here–trust me to spoil your visions of American exceptionalism if we actually get a real release).
Thing is, there’s really no reason to orchestrate a holiday document dump if that dump is going to be the same page after page of complete redaction. While I don’t put it beyond the CIA to use every possible secrecy technique regardless of whether or not those techniques are necessary, the holiday document dump gives me some small hope that we’ll actually get something worth hiding in a holiday document dump.
I still remain skeptical this release is going to be as revealing as the declassification of the OLC memos was. But these two delays give me some hope I’ll be surprised once we do finally get the IG Report.
EW – do you believe the CIA is the tail wagging the US Govn. dog? (rhetorical question in order to set the table)
And if so, will Obama continue this effect – or assert the POTUS power over the CIA?
IOW – bring the CIA into line UNDER the POTUS rather than EQUAL to or GREATER? Herculean task, to be sure. But, IMHO, absolutely necessary for the preservation (reclaiming???) of America’s moral and ethical standing at home and in the world.
Seems to me that if Obama wants to subjugate the CIA, this is as good a time as any to lob a coupla grenades at them to halt their forward progress. Otherwise…..
Chalmers Johnson, in his wonderful book, NEMESIS, says until the CIA is disbanded and the intelligence duties are brought under the State Dept., the militarization of the American Empire will continue and be the eventual downfall of the Republic. His arguments are persuasive. Great book, esp. the audio version.
I just wonder what real information will be released. The report itself had lots of pressure and Helgerson is now saying he’s on board with Panetta’s view that no one should be prosecuted. Of course, when you have at just GITMO (not including Bagram, Cropper, etc.) 90 are proof that America Does Not Torture, you have a mess. And they seem to be especially sensitive about any connectingdots to our foreign torture partners.
So far the Obama administration has been like watching Bambi Does DC
Didja ever see Bambi Meets Godzilla?
LOL – only it hurts some too. It is like a B movie.
@5 – Wright alludes to this avenue of inquiry in his book (Looming Tower) Apparently O’Neill got crossways with Freeh on this, as O’Neill was sure at the beginning of the investigation that the Saudis were working their own agenda.
Ah yes, one of the best films of my college years—and continues to be a great metaphor!
This is the oldest and longest version (about a minute and a half, almost all of which consists of credits (”Marv Newland” )), then the action commences. I suspect this is the one you saw.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAVYYe87b9w
EW, like you, my take is that Panetta has been submitting his homework over and over, but Professor Obama keeps sending it back for more work.
Shorter Panetta: “Aw jeez, do I hafta?”
Marcy!
A torture issue, but one that interleaves with the Iraq run-up and Saudi and Al-Quaeda and this stuff just keeps getting better and better.
http://rawstory.com/08/news/20…..-al-qaeda/
Interesting story. And I got the sense from Freeh’s testimony at Holder’s confirmation hearing that Freeh and Holder are pretty close.
This is just a loose memory, but Freeh sat with the family at Mukasey’s confirmation hearings too. Small world.
This has become a classic line. Like in sports when they say, “let’s go to the video tape.”
O/T, or back to cars and such
Makes me feel better that they aren’t taking the money and running down to Brazil or somewhere to locate their facilities
GM, GE pick Michigan for manufacturing facilities
By Sharon Silke Carty, USA TODAY
DETROIT — “Michigan had a day of good news Friday, when two major companies said they’d picked spots in the economically depressed state for their manufacturing facilities.
“General Electric says they’ll hire 1,100 scientists, engineers and technologists in a new manufacturing technology and software development site in Van Buren Township, about 25 miles from Detroit. And General Motors said they picked a plant in Orion Township, about 40 miles north of Detroit, to make a subcompact and compact car.”
http://www.usatoday.com/money/…..igan_N.htm
Your optimism is inspiring (though not yet contagious).
The Justice Department also said that on the same day, July 1, they will determine whether there is anything in 35 Department of Defense documents that describe specific torture techniques and other memos where detainees said they were tortured that can be declassified.
“No one should be prosecuted,” is that the same thing as saying that this country is above the law? The Germans tried to use the excuse that they were “just following orders,” but that excuse didn’t hold water. Why are we any better than the Germans or the Japanese?
Why shouldn’t anyone who tortured be held responsible, be it from the lowest man up to the CIC! They knew what they were doing was against the law, but more than likely they probably reveled in carring out the torturing!
Until this whole sordid affair is exposed for the whole world to see, we as a country don’t deserve one ounce of repsect from any country in the world!
Torture is torture,the sooner that that is recognised the quicker this country can try to reclaim for itself the position it once held!
That excuse worked better than many people in this country know. When it came to prosecuting Nazis all sorts of excuses were used to avoid it. The Nuremberg Trials were more of an exception than the rule. In addition to allowing Werner von Braun and his entire crew of V2 rocket scientists to relocate to Texas the US helped people like Klaus Barbie to escape to South America with the help of the Vatican and the Red Cross.
The Nazis who remained in Germany didn’t have much to worry about either. Well known Nazis and SS members returned to their pre-war homes and many of them got jobs in the West German government. Think of Kurt Waldheim. Here was a man who was Secretary-General of the United Nations who was later outed as an ex-Nazi, altho I don’t think thee is such a thing.
While the Nazis may have lost the war, they were still the powers that be during the run up to WWII and during the war and power deals differently with power than it does with those under its thumb.
So far as I know, Cheney is the only torturer who claims to take pride in the practice, as of waterboarding, for example (not that he cottons to the word “torture”). Perhaps he’ll give us some vivid details in his memoirs. He should certainly urge Obama to tell the whole story–the experiments, the findings, the frustrations, the rewards…
Greenwald has a new article up about Obama’s preventive detention Executive Order story. Very interesting, as the one example below illustrates.
Obama contemplates Executive Order for detention without charges
Glenn Greenwald
SATURDAY JUNE 27, 2009 05:28 EDT
“More important, look at the mentality being expressed — and about to be implemented — here: there may be instances where we cannot get convictions because of witness unavailability or other logistical problems, so we’ll just imprison them anyway. Does it really require any effort to demonstrate how dangerous that mentality is — that the President will have the power to order people imprisoned wherever there are some logistical barriers to obtaining convictions? If there’s one principle that can be described as fundamental to the American founding, it’s that the state — and certainly the President — do not have the power to order people imprisoned without charges. Thomas Jefferson said that trials by jury is “the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.” Why is this painfully obvious proposition still necessary to defend after the November election?”
http://www.salon.com/opinion/g…..detention/
OT, but after reading Sharlet’s piece in Harpers on The Family, I have to say I was able to find one pivotal platform on which I can agree with them:
It may not be on a par with making the trains run on time, but it does give The Family something to be proud of.
Great find! I’m not as sanguine as you that it’s something they can “be proud of,” but it’s a start, all right.
I have always done that. If you don’t, it get spot and you have to clean it sooner. I don’t think my wife has ever noticed. I also change the tp roll when it runs out.
And you’ve done it all without crushing your inner rebel. *g*
Your comment @ 17 made me LOL … their idea of a rebel is one who does not wipe the toilet seat … how do these jokers manage to accrue so much wealth and power ?
I hate holidays, and I don’t blow shit up any more, so dump away Mr Obama
I gotta stay home to comfort my dogs any way
the fire crackers really piss my dogs off, so they don’t care if I spend all weekend in the toobz …
Ditto on the firecrackers (and other fireworks, mine even growl at thunder) but its so hot here, even turning on the computer seems like a hefty addition to global warming.
OT – but I guess I missed this yesterday – Obama puts a Bushian signing statement on the war funding bill and says “his” Treasury dept doesn’t have to report to Congress on the IMF, no matter what Congress put in the legislation.
http://thehill.com/leading-the…..06-26.html
Go ahead, turn the monitor on. It is a drop in the bucket. I just went from airconditioned house to air conditioned car to airconditioned baseball stadium for an afternoon game. They manage to keep the 49,000 seat stadium at 78 degrees when it is 108 outside.
But it’s a green heat….
I’m guessing that no matter what the CIA ends up redacting, they will be surprised at what EW and the folks around here will be able to ferret out nonetheless.
I gave them a cheat sheet, though. I did two posts with everything that–at a minimum–MUST be in the “declassified” report. So I won’t be able to catch them reclassifying things that got declassified in the OLC memos.
OT, but an update on a running story: Abousfian Abdelrazik arrived at Pearson International in Toronto just after 4 p.m. He was accompanied by one of his lawyers, two Mounties, and two diplomats from DFAIT — the escort was ordered by the Federal Court, just in case somebody got Gulfstreamy ideas along the way, y’know …
Just before he left Khartoum and just before his lawyer got to the embassy where he’s been living in sanctuary for two years, some USian official strolled in and had a chat with him, a meeting apparently allowed by our
weaselsofficials. We expect to hear more about that story once his lawyer can talk to the press here.This is only one step. Because the U.S. insists he must remain on the UN list, we’re being told that it is illegal for anyone to employ him or give him money. The Federal Court have already made it clear they’re losing patience with that game (”fairies and goblins”), so we’ll see.
And now I gotta go turn a few somersaults.
I’m happy to hear he’s home, and I hope that that other sh*t ends soon. I don’t think that the US government should have any say over what citizens of other countries do in their own countries, on on planes that don’t land in the US (or only land for refueling and crew change, with the passengers not free to leave the gate area).
I’ll join you for somersaults … if Iggy, Rae & Co. have any spine, they’ll push for justice to be given to Mr. Abdelrasik.
*yeah, I know … not anytime soon …*
Walter Cronkite on his deathbed – from rawstory
More on the indefinite detention Executive Order story. EW gets some well-deserved credit, too!
Obama Considering Indefinite Detention Executive Order
by mcjoan
“Which is precisely what this executive order would be: “”White House officials are increasingly worried that reaching quick agreement with Congress on a new detention system may be impossible.” It would be unilateral executive action for expedience’s sake.
“Look at the example Marcy supplies: the evidence being used to hold Walid bin Attash, accused of involvement in the 2000 USS Cole bombing, comes from testimony from Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, and is probably inadmissable because it was gained through torture. As Marcy says, “Will Walid bin Attash be deprived a day in Court because we’re covering up our own torture?”‘
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…..tive-Order
I can’t imagine a more patriotic way to spend Independence Day weekend. It seems you’ve found your calling. Congrats on Froomkin’s props to you. You deserve it.
An early account (2002 originally) of Freeh/Khobar that jibes with Porter’s articles:
The Age of Sacred Terror
From my new Facebook buddy:
Perhaps they were so preoccupied with their color-coded terrist alert system that they overlooked this.
Known terrorists were allowed to keep aviation licenses
“Those who were shocked to discover, after 9/11, how easy it is for persons linked to terrorism to acquire pilots’ licenses may be surprised to discover that, nearly eight years after that fateful day, at least six people known to have — or suspected of — terrorist links were able to keep their aviation licenses.”
http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/…..-licenses/
Proud to say that was in the NYT on Friday.
Oh, good. Thnx.
The FOIA isn’t about who is or who is not going to be prosecuted. It’s also not about wh is or who is not going to get upset by the information. It’s actually just about freedom of information. It seems like they’re obsessing about what they will release rather than what they really shouldn’t release for valid national security reasons. Unless that report has the formula for a hydrogen bomb or a map of underground bunkers, why not release the whole damn thing. That the C.I.A. [and others] did a lot of bad stuff is no longer a State Secret…
This can also be known as the Andy Murray Document Dump on one side of the pond. (Maybe it didn’t need to be said that badly)
Thanks for the calming influence. I was getting very ornery about this report although it will cause me to get even deeper behind (see above)
Everyone knows what is in the report. Descriptions of vile acts of torture and abuse. I am so glad that adults who actually have a thoughtful, reasonable perspective on this issue are involved in the decision as to how these reports are released/used; by whom and to what end.
As a liberal Democrat who has always had a healthy distrust of the police, FBI and law enforcement, it’s laughable to me how the far-far-far-left has suddenly embraced the rule of law. Never have I seen such a case of wanton and gratuitous infatuation with a previously derided perspective. But, there is not stopping an extremist scorned is there — there are no limits on the extreme left’s blood thirst for revenge. Even if it harms this country and jeopardizes the lives of Americans overseas.
I really think it was Bush’s smirk. A visceral pneumonic device that made so many see red. Can’t walk away.
Are you perhaps conflating two quite different faces of “the law”? The tight focus of conservatives on law’n’order is a very different thing from allegiance to “the rule of law,” which I understand to be a concern for the underlying principles and structures of democracy (see Bill of Rights, constitution, etc), most of which are meant to guard or guarantee liberty.
I’m a lefty who’s sometimes deeply sceptical of the law enforcement I know and whose position on prosecutors used to be adopted straight from Rumpole. Then I met FDL and NH and EW, and that position became a li’l more complex.
I think the sudden affection for the rule of law is at best inconsistent with what the left has always believed and at worst a self-serving emotional desire for revenge. I see no advantage or intellectual honesty in trying to rationalize this by dissecting the law and analyzing legal nuances.
We can agree to disagree – I believe the far left’s motivation is revenge and I do not think this is the time to intentionally engage in a political bloodbath with health care, climate change and the economy on the table. The President is showing tremendous leadership by understanding this. Only the extreme left sees this otherwise, it’s not even on working people’s radar. Nor should it be.
You are so full of shit your eyes are brown. Who exactly are you accusing of having a sudden conversion to the rule of law?? Because I have t had that as a driving raison d’etre all my life and as a critical tenet of my professional career forever. Everybody I have met and known for years here feels the same general affinity, within normal bounds of difference, about the primacy of the rule of law. The rule of law is THE critical underpinning of the Constitution and our entire ethos. When you trot out your little bullshit false strawman junk about suddenness you mark your argument as fraudulent from the start. Oh, and by the way, dissecting the law and analyzing legal nuances is exactly what the law is, and always has been, about. That is how the law lives, thrives and grows.
Next time you want to accuse people of being flaky on this, please name names, I want to know the specific people and instances you are referring to, not your typical strawman horse manure. Oh, and one other thing, the most recent polls I have seen were, I believe, in the area of 75% popular support for a full public plan, so you are flat out intentionally lying when you say that this is some “extreme left” view. Why do you feel it appropriate to insult people by intentionally lying to their face? Pretty sad existence. Put up the facts or stand down with your tripe.
bmaz,
Howdy, from Flagstaff!
I think you are in “rhetorical excess” mode in your response. I write as an anthropologist who has seen how “law” has been used around the world. For example, the Israelis are great at using “law” to disenfranchise Palestinians from their land because they don’t have acceptable deeds of ownership for lands that they have occupied for generations. Our own “laws” kept Blacks in servitude in some parts of the country for generations.
I respect your service to the rule of law as much as I respect the service of our military veterans who have defended the United States. But even there, you know as well as I how Bush abused the law (e.g., the AUMF) as justification for his invasion of Iraq, and how a dozen abominable “laws” were used by the Bush administration (I have in mind Glenn Greenwald’s dirty dozen laws in a post dated January 2008, IIRC).
The law, in and of itself, is neither good nor bad. There can be bad laws as well as good laws. Our Constitutional balance of powers is crucial to a benevolent Rule of Law, so that bad laws are identified and nullified by the Courts or revised by the Congress. When Congress becomes supine and aides an aggressive Executive, bad laws get passed. If the Rule of Law is your only guidepost, then that would include defending and implementing bad laws, too?
Bob from HI
Heavens. I know so many lefts. I wouldn’t know how to generalize about “the left” at that level.
I’ve been a lefty for forty years, a lover of Diderot and Rousseau for close to that, and I don’t see any inconsistency in saying at one and the same time “Oh, freedom!” and “arrest the tyrants.” I’ve always thought those two went together.
I also grew up with the lessons of Nuremberg very present, very alive, so morally compelling to young people of my generation. Those were foundational to the New Left of the sixties, as was the civil rights movement (a natural progression). How can you imagine that we never cared about the rule of law?
My only response to you is the following. Where are the moderators to call you out on your ad hominem personal attacks and vulgarity? They put me on moderate because I have the guts to walk into the lions den and call out the extremists here on their hypocrisy. FYI – my comments were about this post – not health care so before you start preaching about straw men take a look at your own hyperbole.
I will stand down to no one.
Don’t stand down, just show us the extremism and the hypocrisy of “this post”.
Ummm … I have a feeling that you are responding to the wrong post here.
Ohs Nos, skdadl … the crafty one has decoded our Canuck Secret List of Obscenities !
I’ll get the Beer & Back Bacon, you canoe on over here and we’ll sit in the Igloo on Beaver Pelts and find new alternatives to our coded words …
Meet me at the portage — I need a little help hoisting the canoe these days. I’ll bring the pemmican.
Gosh. Somebody thought I was bmaz. I am so chuffed, I cannot tell you.
Look let us please be honest here. The left since the 1960’s has been anti police, anti FBI, anti CIA, and anti law enforcement and authority in general. Also, the left has never embraced the constitution, the second amendment has always meaningless and irrelevant. I have always come down on the side of the left issue wise and always mistrusted law enforcement. That is not my point, the hypocrisy is. The cacophony on the extreme left to “get” Bush-Cheney is based on a thirst for revenge in my opinion. The “rule of law” contention is just an excuse.
I challenge you to give specifics and you come back with even grosser generalities than you started with.
It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than it is to open it and prove it.
More personal ad hominem attacks – where are you moderator? Or do you just moderate those who dare to express an opposing point of view.
I will answer your question despite your vulgarity. A general answer is the right one. This is not the time to rip this country apart and more than it already is. We are bleeding profusely right now, the American people are hurting. We do not need “at this time” to exacerbate this. Period.
Where are you moderator? Come on now, prove that FDL enforces their policies in an even-handed way. I mean, the “rule of law” is important right?
If you are a self-declared “leftie” how can you possibly assert what’s on “working people’s” radar? I assume you employ Hillary’s definition of “Hard Working” – which in itself is depressing for you. Leaving aside the fact that most Americans, regardless of ideology, are indeed hard working people, why are you in a position to make assertion on the views of those with other political ideologies?
As someone who has only voted Democratic Party twice in my life, let me assure you: you haven’t a clue what you are talking about. It took three weeks of Dick/Liz being on the Teevees 24/7 selling their tripe unchallenged to move public opinion on this issue even within the 50-50 range – in polling that stilts the framing of questions (”If you knew ‘harsh interrogation’ would save your children, money and puppies from imminent death would you support it?”). Americans don’t like torture, and overwhelmingly want to see past torture prosecuted. Sorry it’s inconvenient for Obama, but he’s reducing his own stature by playing the games he is playing.
This doesn’t have anything to do with revenge – I didn’t even vote for Gore in 2000. Many of us who don’t support the entire “left agenda” are counting on the lefties kicking some ass and not backing down. That’s why we independents and centrist republicans gave democrats power. If we wanted torture cover ups, ambiguity in detention policy, state secrets expansions, indefinite detention, expansion of domestic surveillance, etc. – we’d have overwhelmingly voted for McCain. That didn’t happen. Obama’s promises on the campaign trail are what Americans overwhelmingly voted for, trying to tell yourself differently is simply a delusion.
I, too, have mixed feelings about the “rule of law.” Too often, it is used by the privileged against those not so privileged. That is why the provisions of the Constitution that protect the less-privileged are so important, including the principle that no one is above the law, as well as every one of the Bill of Rights.
Bob from HI
Currently in AZ
I couldn’t agree more. I revere your Bill of Rights. Rousseau would have loved you for it.
Back in 1952, at the tender age of thirteen, I joined the ACLU. The reason for this? Some family friends–journalists, diplomats and professors–were being persecuted by people like McGeorge Bundy, Joe McCarthy, and members of the Kennedy household. Though I’ll admit to having been, at the same time, a charter subscriber to I.F.Stone’s Weekly, no one ever called me a “member of the extreme left”: I rather “belonged”, as it were, to the ADA, a centrist operation.
What, then, does a thirteen-year-old learn from joining the ACLU? A motto, mainly: “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”. Needless to say, at the age of thirteen you don’t know much about “eternity,” “vigilance,” “the price of things”, or “liberty”. You only know that the sentence has something in store for you–that somewhere down the line it’s going to move you to free yourself from falsehood, as best you are can.
Bush–an incompetent little man who gets his kicks from torture–is an obvious object of scorn. He’s not a problem for me. No, the motto only comes back to haunt me when people I admire start to cut corners. And I remember the one word that matters most–”Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”–which, if not a “pneumonic device,” is indeed a powerfully “mnemonic” one.
I should also mention that I’ve been living abroad for a while, and that my thoughts, which I share with those who ask, do not seem to be “harming the country” or “jeopardizing the lives of Americans abroad”. I wish I could say the same for the actions of our government.
I don’t disagree on Bush-Cheney. No one despises what that administration wrought on this country and the world than I. I do not think now is the time to go after them.
I have said on numerous occasions here that this is not the time to let fly the dogs of revenge. With all the pressing issues facing this country and the world right now, tearing the country apart would be a terrible thing to do. Iran, North Korea, the Middle East, Health Care, Energy, the deficit, imigration, etc. It would be insane to do so.
Ah, a concern troll!
Oh, well.
Bob from HI
First, the country has been built on contestation, and the Constitution itself is a testimony to this fact. Of course there are laws to prevent things like killing people and destroying property. I don’t see the incompatibility of discourse, even ferocious discourse, with a healthy political scene (Milton says the same in Areopagitica).
As for revenge: at least half of Shakespeare’s writings are meditations on revenge. Sometimes it’s politically healthy (as in The Rape of Lucrece), and sometimes not (as in King Lear).
I think Obama would lower my own temperature by levelling with the nation about the nation’s misdeeds–about the misdeeds of the nation’s government done in the name of the nation’s people (myself among them). And perhaps he will. Certainly his tendency, at least in appearance, to condone and extend the rogue-state of the Bush administration is a source of the greatest concern.
Barack Obama has in no way condoned what the Bush administration did, he has made huge and significant changes in the way this country does things. They are just not as extreme as you would like. That’s what this is all about. Calling the United States from 2001 – 2008 a “rogue” state is more extremist hyperbole that just shows how out of touch you are with mainstream America.
I know what is going on with the extreme left, FDL and others. You knew Obama was a liberal to moderate Democrat, nothing has been a surprise, yet because he hasn’t totally governed a la Kucinich you attack him like he was the reincarnation of evil.
You can bitch and scream all you want. The reality is that this country never has been and never will be a far left country. Pragmatism dictates you get what you can and not knock the house down because the architect didn’t follow the blueprint “in your head”.
You knew Obama was a liberal to moderate Democrat, nothing has been a surprise, yet because he hasn’t totally governed a la Kucinich you attack him like he was the reincarnation of evil.
redfish, when did I ever attack Obama “like he was the reincarnation of evil”? Show me, and I’ll apologize. And if you can’t show me, you might want to do the same.
Why might you want to? Well, you come here to discuss things. If you wish to dispute what I say, you really have to speak to what I say (not because it’s brilliant or even interesting, but because it’s what I said).
Obama, whom I admire and respect, is the one who said it best: he said that people in power don’t just do what you want, you have to fight for what you want (or words to that effect). I want accusations of torture to be addressed in forthright ways, and in the appropriate fora. This also happens to be the subject of the post, which is why I’m contributing to this thread.
By the way, a “rogue state,” as I understand it, is one that wages wars whenever it feels like waging a war, whatever the pretext, whatever the nominal grounds. And how do you understand the term?
redfish, if a sheriff in your community assaulted a member of your family and the sheriff stood in the way of investigating and prosecuting himself, then an election was held and the old sheriff lost and was out of office, would you think it revenge to insist that the new sheriff investigate (or take the evidence you have found) and prosecute the old sheriff for the assault?
Or would you also think that was the job of the new sheriff?
First of all, it’s a rather ludicrous analogy, but I get your point and won’t let that stand in the way of me answering you directly.
You claim an assault was committed – we don’t know that, you think/believe that. It is up to others, not the sheriff, not you and not bloggers and not congress to make that call.
To wit, if you want to consider the “rule of law” you have become so fond of, you would know that every day in this country, hundreds if not thousands of district attorneys make judgments whether or not to prosecute someone. They take into consideration all sorts of factual evidence, whether they think they can get a conviction as well as other intangibles having to do with timing, etc. Let this process play out, I believe Obama has said that Holder (properly) would be looking at all these past “alleged” infractions and would make recommendations/issues indictments or not based on all the above when he deems it appropriate. I am ok with that.
There has been no trial and everyone in this country deserves the presumption of innocence.
I am now going to officially warn you, because I am tired of this inane babble. Contribute on an intellectual level, based on facts instead of repetitive inane platitudes, or be gone. The choice is yours, and the outcome entirely in your hands. Personally I hope you decide to contribute, but have no compunction whatsoever if you do not.
Let me help you along you hypocrite. Everything I wrote above was a reasonable and intellectual opinion. You allow others to curse at me and then you dare threaten me because I don’t cow-tow to your fascist demagoguery?
How’s this. Screw you, go to hell.
Well, there you go. Say goodnight Gracie.
Well, then, what do you tow cows to?
You know, I live in Arizona, and we got em here. People towing cows should stay to the right, because they are moving too slow.
Thank heaven they’re issued special licence plates.
Nice job folks.
love, Gracie’s former nanny.
It is my understanding that the ACLU went along with this postponement but said no more after July 1.
The country has already been ripped apart. Is denying this wound the best most reasonable way to move forward. Perhaps if the wound is only a scratch or insignificant cut…but if the wound instead is gaping then ignoring it will only make it worse. Will lead in fact to death, without healing.
Right now America…our consitution has a gaping wound. To continue to “move forward” despite this wound is to kill America…and become wolf bait.
To heal we MUST VALIDATE THE WOUND.