This isn't going to be a huge post.
Basically, when we think of a "revolution" I think we tend to imagine some sort of romantic event, where "the people" make a clean break from a detested past and start to build the new society. (Okay, fuck it, I don't care if you don't see it that way! That's the way I imagine you see it, SO THERE!!!) In this light, a "revolutionary consciousness" would be the realization that the old order is bankrupt and has to go. And then the individual's spirit is enthused by the new values of the new society.
If that's anybody's idea of "revolution" and "revolutionary consciousness" then I say that I don't think reality will work out that way. For one thing, I believe that we've almost got all the political power we need to bring about a revolutionary transformation of society and that the boring, hum-drum of electoral politics can achieve this in a way more gradual than the romantic idea of a great event making a clean break with the past, but the revolution will be just as transformative nonetheless.
I also believe that what will be more enduring than a sudden, romantic transformation, will be a gradual process (not too gradually, obviously) of people becoming masters of their own lives and their own societies, in a way that is impossible to achieve with an abrupt change that will tend to push charismatic leaders to the fore. One way that I believe this can happen is to make workers citizens within their own workplaces, but another way (and one which will perhaps be easier to achieve in the short run) is to put citizens in charge of public sector institutions.
I believe that any provincial or federal government could easily create a new system of governance for the public sector. There would still be democratic accountability and leadership through elected ministers, but beneath that level institutions should be run in a tripartite fashion with one-third worker, one-third administrative and one-third citizen representation on boards of control.
As the employer, governments have the complete right to implement worker control over the public sector. At the same time, without creating to great a split with the past I think there's call for having managers who have a sense of the big picture remaining on the board. But there should be all sorts of positions (at levels of local control) for elected citizen representatives. As the recipients of the services provided and as representatives of the taxpayers, these citizens can voice complaints about service or service delivery and get a sense of who has a just case in things like work hours, job stability and costs, workers or management.
It will help ordinary people understand how their society works and will not seem to radical for all the people out in suburbia.
And with that abrupt, graceless ending, I'm off for the day.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Good Critique of "Brand Obama"
I was never too taken by Barack Obama. Yes, he's better than bush II. In that by not being a drooling moron, obviously in thrall to evil, third-rate con-men trying to rob the USA for all they're worth, Barack Obama can make USians smarter than the Repug grassroots take faith in their country again. Which means to buy into a system that is not in their best interests.
Anyway, here's a good critique from Chris Hedges at CommonDreams.Org, "Buying Brand Obama":
There.
Anyway, here's a good critique from Chris Hedges at CommonDreams.Org, "Buying Brand Obama":
Barack Obama is a brand. And the Obama brand is designed to make us feel good about our government while corporate overlords loot the Treasury, our elected officials continue to have their palms greased by armies of corporate lobbyists, our corporate media diverts us with gossip and trivia and our imperial wars expand in the Middle East. Brand Obama is about being happy consumers. We are entertained. We feel hopeful. We like our president. We believe he is like us. But like all branded products spun out from the manipulative world of corporate advertising, we are being duped into doing and supporting a lot of things that are not in our interest.
There.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
An Idiot Named "Colin"
Over at Dr. Dawg's Blawg, in the comments section to a condemnation of the harpercon government's violation of the rights of Abousfian Abdelrazik, an idiot named "Colin" shows up to excrete the following black pearls of wisdom:
Regarding the possible reasons the Canadian government might have for refusing his return, "Colin" states (with an argument he'd never like to see turned on himself):
Or there is information that legitimately keeps him out of Canada that cannot be revealed without compromising the source.That seems more reasonable and likely than these racism allegations and con's are evil claims by our less reasonable citizens.
To the actual allegations of racism against Abdelrazik, "Colin" responds:
There is no proof of racism. That idiot Dewar even went so far as to back away from the claims today.If this guy has no connections to terrorism he will get back in. Chances are very good that he is connected but to prove it would compromise future intelligence gathering.I know that it is hard for lefties to engage critical thinking faculties (too much time spent in the cold chanting with the raging grannies) but before accusing elected officials of sinister motives I suggest you find some proof.
Note that! Rich isn't it? We're to support the government's right to deny a Canadian citizen of his right to return, because there's probably "secret evidence" out there that explains it all. (Even if no amount of evidence can legally prevent his return in any case.) But if we want to accuse the government of racism, well we have to get a letter or an e-mail or a phone message from Stephen Harper saying "Keep that damned n____r in Africa!" before we're justified in our bad thoughts about the government. "Colin" is a textbook example of the sort of authoritarian chump who help dictatorships stay in power throughout history.
EK,obviously you dont understand the concept of burning a contact in the spy industry, but you can be sure that this clown is not worth compromising a source.proof will not be delivered because the Minister invoked national security...The embassy is giving him lodging and consular services so he has every opportunity to have this overturned. Just dont get your hopes up.
Now "Colin" is channelling Ian Fleming, and (inevitably) embarrassing himself totally.
Because actual prosecution of criminal conduct while abroad is not a requirement to bar someone from re-entry into the country we can throw out that line of argument.There are circumstances wherein the suspicion and testimony of security agents abroad is enough to cast doubt on the loyalties of a citizen. If the government minister then denies entry based on national security issues we can piss and moan all we like but we also have to acknowledge that there is something we are not privy to that is barring re-entry.Heading overseas to caddy for bin-laden is not a crime per se it would serve as enough to deny entry.It would also be wise not to let on to bin-laden that we have ways of gathering that info so we deny entry based on "national security".Tough luck for your stranded buddy but he appears to be fooked so to speak.
Again, more drivel. More insane, illegitimate, unconstitutional jibberish.
Well, I cannot believe that there is any political benefit to this matter at all. It isnt going to move votes either way. I also do not believe that the government is racist. Thats too much tin-foil hat for me.So, I will trust our security officials and minister to deny this guy re-entry based on something he did that you guys dont know about. They have no need to provide you with proof. Those are unfortunately for you the laws as written.If you dont like them petition to have the laws changed but dont accuse a democratically elected minister of being a racist based on scant evidence.
Fooking amazing. Accusing the government of racism is "tin-foil hat" territory. But all "Colin's" spy talk about denying citizens the right to return to Canada based on secret evidence is ... what's the polar opposite of the tin-foil hat wearer? The person with a childish faith in authority?
Later, in another thread, Colin dropped this bit of geo-political drivel (and this is the shit I'd like to start demolishing):
Thwap,Im not sure you are even using your brain or whether you borrowed a defective one from some sociology dept professor.I dont care who Karzai kills rapes or fucks. I dont care at all about those people. If you think radical islamists hate us because of something we have done you are the biggest fool of all. They hate us because we are not like them. They hate all non-muslims, you included. They would of course refer to you as a useful idiot because you refuse to acknowledge the threat they pose.At this point all I care about is that our armies could with proper political clearance wipe those child-raping, misogynous fuckers off the face of the earth. The simple fucking fact if you want to engage your critical faculties is that no terrorist group can set up camp and use it as a base of operations to attack me. Full stop. Thats all I care about. The rest of the fuckers can sodomize their nephews and marry their nieces, I dont care.If we would drop the silly notion that we have to minimize casualties we could massacre a few villages, wipe the people you consider to be scum out and lets goats graze in peace again. We cant win if we dont kill lots of people. We should get at it because these guys breed like rabbits.
And this, once again, is why we mock them and hate them.
Let's begin:
More stuff.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
They Walk Among Us ...
I've been wasting my time over at "Celestial Junk" today, trying to make "Paul" and his readers understand that the moronic Condoleeza Rice didn't really trash the fine, upstanding individual who confronted her about her past regime's torture policies (a "moonbat" in bushlovers' parlance). Not only did Condi fail to make the young man look like an idiot, every single word out of her mouth showed her to be an absolute cretin. The bulk of my contributions are reproduced below in case they get deleted, though to his great good credit, "Paul" has not resorted to that so far.
1. You know, it's funny. Guys like me on the left think that people like you are all drooling idiots, but you people on the right say the same stuff about us.
Wouldn't it be great if we could dispense with the insults and have a mature, intelligent debate on the facts?
That'd be awesome. The only thing standing in the way is that you people really are drooling idiots for whom facts are meaningless. You're incapable of intelligent debate because you were all born stupid and it's simply too much work for your tiny brains to achieve.
You took this film clip of the super-incompetent Condoleeza Rice as something to cheer about? It's sad, it's sick, it's pathetic, that you find yourselves vindicated in that ridiculous performance.
I'm going to tell you why and then I'm going to watch your responses. You're either going to delete my post, or you're going to type something stupid, incoherent and irrelevant. Or you're going to go "Gee. He's right. Condi does look pretty stupid there. Maybe I should give up blogging, shut my mouth, and stay out of politics for the rest of my life. I won't even vote because I'm just not up to the job of not picking somebody evil, stupid and corrupt."
(I suspect it's going to be either the first or second option you'll all go for.)
First off, I read last night that Condi said somewhere that Nazi Germany never attacked the continental United States.
WRONG.
In 1942, Nazi U-boats attacked ships in harbours off the US Atlantic Coast sinking more tonnage of ships than the Japanese did between Pearl Harbour and Midway.
Furthermore, what is the relevance of the 9-11 attack to the enormity of the danger represented by Nazi Germany? Nazi Germany was by far a more powerful threat than Al Qaeda can ever hope to be.
She's asked about "Indefinite Detention" and she says that the Supreme Court is preventing the Guantanamo detainees from receiving trials under the Military Commissions Act. The SCOTUS is "holding up" those "trials" because they've been condemned both inside and out as kangaroo courts dedicated only to achieving convictions. They're a disgrace. I don't blame the guy for not being able to answer her question given the bizarre way that she framed it.
She points to the ICRC as saying there's no torture at Guantanamo. Here's the ICRC's actual position:
"The contents of the ICRC's representations and reports are confidential and for the exclusive attention of the relevant detaining authorities. Therefore, in accordance with its usual policy, the organization will not publicly confirm or deny whether the quotations in the article entitled "Red Cross Finds Detainee Abuse in Guantanamo", which appeared in the New York Times of 30 November, reflect findings reported by the ICRC to the United States authorities regarding the conditions of detention and treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay."
So, in order to continue to have access to the prisoners so that they can be able to communicate with their families outside, the ICRC refrains from public condemnation of the jailers.
What else do they do?
"its policy of direct and confidential representations to the detaining authorities"
So they bring their concerns to the torturers in private. Occasionally though, stuff leaks out, like this article in the pinko-commie-terrorist lovin' National Post:
"Health workers violated medical ethics when they helped interrogate terrorism suspects who were tortured at secret CIA prisons overseas, the International Committee of the Red Cross said."
http://www.nationalpost.com/news...html? id=1474333
The OSCE visits that she cites are pretty dubious. An unaffiliated "expert" accompanied their mission to Guantanamo and said conditions there were better than in Belgian prisons, but the OSCE took pains to point out that he did not represent them. Two reports, one in 2005, the other in 2007 both urged that the facility be closed.
Maybe she didn't read that while she was casting about desperately for sources of exoneration. Maybe one doesn't have to know about every scrap of paper Dick Cheney pulls out of his ass to rationalize his policies before speaking out against them. Condi was particularly slimey in that part of the exchange.
Her last bit about water-boarding is actually amazingly bad. Listen to what she says. She says that the president told her that they were not to do anything that violated the USA's legal obligations. Then she says (in typical, gutless bushie fashion) that she didn't authorize anything anyway, she just conveyed the authorization of the president/justice department.
Note: Those Justice Department memos are now the subject of possible legal action because everything from John Yoo's green-lighting crushing the testicles of a suspect's child to the drivel about locking people up in coffins with caterpillars, is legal garbage. Those memos were describing actiosn that were clearly illegal.
Then, the idiot says, "by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture."
That's akin to Nixon's claim that if the president orders something then it's not illegal. Which is a way of saying that the president is above the law. Which is a dangerous thing if you think about it. Imagine, dears, if presidents were above the law. Imagine if president Obama could make any action he thought of become legal. Ooooh! Wouldn't you guys be scared! But you're fine with listening to a 10th-rate moron like Condi Rice justify the president's ordering of torture with that justification!
She yammers on and on about how terrible it would have been to have 3,000 more Americans die in a second attack, and it's quite revolting, given how the first 3,000 Americans died because of the supreme incompetence and laziness of the administration she served AND because nothing, but nothing, was gained with all of her torture.
In short, what Rice offered there was an extended string of falsehoods, irrelevancies, mistakes and evasions that do nothing to erase the fact that she's both a war criminal and an incompetent.
What say you folks now???
2. Actually Paul, I don't know anything about the imbecile who writes the "barton bulletin" and all his stupid, insulting garbage about liberal softies and their raggedy ann dolls.
I don't particularly care about what the dingbat has to say about anything when he spouts garbage like that.
Idiots like him make the world LESS safe, for all their chest-beating about how much we owe them.
Stress positions are torture. Water-boarding is torture. Sleep deprivation is torture. Locking people in coffins is torture.
Perhaps Mr. Barton's brain got screwed up when he was water-boarded?
Regarding your ignorance about the Geneva Conventions:
The ICRC (of which Ms. Rice was so eager to manipulate) says this:
"Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention states: "Should any doubt arise as to whether persons, having committed a belligerent act and having fallen into the hands of the enemy," belong to any of the categories for POWs, "such persons shall enjoy the protection of the present Convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal."
In 1987, Ronald Reagan's Deputy Legal Advisor to the State Department said the following:
"We [the United States] do support the principle that, should any doubt arise as to whether a person is entitled to combatant status, he be so treated until his status has been determined by a competent tribunal, as well as the principle that if a person who has fallen into the power of an adversary is not held as a prisoner of war and is to be tried for an offense arising out of the hostilities, he should have the right to assert his entitlement before a judicial tribunal and to have that question adjudicated."
Face it Paul, Condi is an idiot. And your rationalizations for your sadism are wearing thin.
3. Paul,
Let's review: You started off with the insults. According to your own logic you lost before you started. And that's the first correct thing you've said here.
(For the record, I really don't care about the name-calling. What infuriates me about you people is how you think you've got the right to toss insults about when it's you who are so lamentably stupid.)
Condi defends Guantanamo by stating that the ICRC hasn't criticized them, when the facts are:
1. The ICRC's policy is to not criticize governments publicly but to express its concerns privately.
2. Very strong ICRC criticism about torture at Guantanamo was leaked to the media, including the National Post.
Condi mentions the OSCE as saying that Guanatanamo is on par with a typical medium-security prison in Europe.
The facts are:
1. The person who wrote that was not a member of the OSCE but an academic who accompanied an OSCE delegation to Guantanamo
2. The OSCE condemnend Guantanamo in two reports, said it lowered the USA's moral standing in the world and called for it to close.
Condi said that indefinite detentions were a problem, and that the bush II regime tried to bring that to an end with their invention of the Military Tribunals.
The fact is that the Military Tribunals have been almost universally condemned as illegitimate kangaroo courts, with military lawyers resigning in order to not have to participate in a legal sham.
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/12/nation/na-gitmo12
As Condi tells her interviewer, the SCOTUS itself (a very conservative body dominated by Republican nominees!) condemned it. It must have been pretty bad for that SCOTUS to have to have done that.
Condi says that water-boarding is not torture and therefore is not illegal by simply insisting that this is so because the president said they could do it.
That's it. Read that again. Listen to her say that. Then stop and try really, really hard to grasp the significance of that.
I'll wait Paul. Scruntch up your eyes and furrow your brows and use that little brain of yours and THINK!!
COME ON PAUL!!! You can do it!!! THINK!!!
...
Okay? Hopefully you've figured out that stating that the president's okay is all that's needed to make something legal is a very dangerous precedent. Why, Obama could make his FEMA re-education camps legal if presidents had that power, couldn't he?
Now, Condi justified all of this torture by stating that terrorism constitutes the greatest threat the USA has ever faced. The terrorists are apparently scarier than the Nazis and the Soviets. This is due to the fact that only the terrorists attacked the homeland of the United States.
1. It's false to say that the Nazis never attacked the U.S. homeland. full stop.
2. It's irrelevant to the question. Do you need to torture someone, is that person so ruthless that torture is needed to protect the USA, simply because they managed to conduct one attack on the U.S. mainland? Were the Nazi's not a ruthless, evil organization controlling one of the world's major industrial nations? Did not the Soviets have ICBMs that targeted the USA and were they not inspired by a powerful, fanatical ideology?
If torture was not required to be official state policy in either WWII or the Cold War, then it isn't required against Al Qaeda.
Now, I'll bother to watch that Holder video, but I was turned off by the stupid rhetoric at the site hosting it and I honestly don't give a shit about Obama's opinion because I've never been very impressed with him.
But I'd like to see some acknowledgement of my case against Condi's blithering besides your usual off-topic drivel.
4. Paul,
Did I say that a leak from an ICRC proved that there was torture going on?
No. No I did not.
What it does do is demolish Condi's claim that the ICRC has no complaints about Gitmo. It demolishes that completely.
For the record though, you must admit that the ICRC is a respectable organization and that their allegations must be given at least some weight, right?
Suspected terrorists have the rights to:
1. Have their status determined by a competent tribunal
and
2. Have the right to either a civil court or to be tried by a military tribunal consistent with the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (That's what your "needed to parallel regular military tribunals" string of words mean. The UCMJ already has an internationally recognized, legitimate process for deciding these questions and bush II's tribunals failed to meet that level.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/29/AR2006062900928_2.html
These are not simply prisoners of war, as your team admits when categorizing them with the made-up term "illegal combatants." Many of the men held at Guantanamo were innocent. Some of them were handed over by Afghan warlords seeking to collect bounties. Condi, bush II, et. al. were basically saying that they've scooped up some men, accused them of being terrorists, and want to hold them as prisoners in an unending war, and they want to put them on trials tailor-made to guarantee convictions.
That's pretty chilling when you think about it.
It is an opinion that the Military Tribunals were kangaroo courts. It was the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States. Deal With It.
And when military prosecutors resign in disgust rather than participate in legal shams, that isn't just something to roll your eyes over. It means something. It means we have to take this issue SERIOUSLY.
Condi is WRONG. "Enhanced interrogation methods" ARE torture. It's a FACT. To take but one example, stress positions:
"In 1956, the CIA commissioned two Cornell Medical Center researchers to study Soviet interrogation techniques, including standing for extended periods of time. They concluded, "The KGB simply made victims stand for eighteen to twenty-four hoursproducing 'excruciating pain' as ankles double in size, skin becomes 'tense and intensely painful,' blisters erupt oozing 'watery serum,' heart rates soar, kidneys shut down, and delusions deepen."
http://www.slate.com/features/whatistorture/Taxonomy.html
Also at the site you can see that the Israeli Supreme Court declared stress positions to be a form of torture.
Let's remember that the legal opinion you're relying on to exonerate these practices was the Gonzales Justice Department. You're relying on John Yoo who believes that the president can have the testicles of a terrorist SUSPECT'S child smashed in order to obtain testimony. The madman actually believes that there is no national or international statute that prevents the president from doing that.
Those legal opinions are garbage. The United States is bound by the Geneva Conventions to respect the humanity of all individuals it captures. If there is any question as to the legal status of a detainee this must be decided by a competent tribunal. Not only is inflicting bodily pain illegal, so too is degrading and humiliating treatment.
You keep trying to bring up Obama and his replicating some of the actions of the bush II regime as if it means anything to me.
These things are illegal and to the extent that Obama does them he should be condemned as well.
Finally, you're right about the past evidence of torture and summary executions in the past. That's why I was careful to say that it was not "official state policy" rather than to simply state that it never happened. I mentioned how Ronald Reagan had said that torture was never justified under any circumstances when the fact is that US-backed death squads were killing and torturing with impunity throughout Central America during the 1980s and the School of the Americas was found to have been teaching torture methods to them:
http://www.soaw.org/article.php?id=98
It might be understandable that somebody resorts to torture under extreme circumstances. It might be understandable, but it is hardly ever justified and it should NEVER become official policy.
I would understand it if someone killed a person who murdered someone's loved one but was released on a legal technicality. I would hesitate to say that person was justified. And I would certainly not want such individual justice to be legalized. And I would especially not want the agents of the state (police, military) to be able to decide who is innocent and who should be tortured until they confess their guilt before they're executed.
These are not complex questions. This is whether we have Western conceptions of justice and the rule of law or whether we embrace the legal standards of the People's Republic of China.
I know where I stand. You appear to be of the "guilty until proven innocent" standard.
[for the record, i've pushed "publish" twice now and it hasn't posted and it hasn't told me what the problem is. If this shows up three times, my apologies.]
1. You know, it's funny. Guys like me on the left think that people like you are all drooling idiots, but you people on the right say the same stuff about us.
Wouldn't it be great if we could dispense with the insults and have a mature, intelligent debate on the facts?
That'd be awesome. The only thing standing in the way is that you people really are drooling idiots for whom facts are meaningless. You're incapable of intelligent debate because you were all born stupid and it's simply too much work for your tiny brains to achieve.
You took this film clip of the super-incompetent Condoleeza Rice as something to cheer about? It's sad, it's sick, it's pathetic, that you find yourselves vindicated in that ridiculous performance.
I'm going to tell you why and then I'm going to watch your responses. You're either going to delete my post, or you're going to type something stupid, incoherent and irrelevant. Or you're going to go "Gee. He's right. Condi does look pretty stupid there. Maybe I should give up blogging, shut my mouth, and stay out of politics for the rest of my life. I won't even vote because I'm just not up to the job of not picking somebody evil, stupid and corrupt."
(I suspect it's going to be either the first or second option you'll all go for.)
First off, I read last night that Condi said somewhere that Nazi Germany never attacked the continental United States.
WRONG.
In 1942, Nazi U-boats attacked ships in harbours off the US Atlantic Coast sinking more tonnage of ships than the Japanese did between Pearl Harbour and Midway.
Furthermore, what is the relevance of the 9-11 attack to the enormity of the danger represented by Nazi Germany? Nazi Germany was by far a more powerful threat than Al Qaeda can ever hope to be.
She's asked about "Indefinite Detention" and she says that the Supreme Court is preventing the Guantanamo detainees from receiving trials under the Military Commissions Act. The SCOTUS is "holding up" those "trials" because they've been condemned both inside and out as kangaroo courts dedicated only to achieving convictions. They're a disgrace. I don't blame the guy for not being able to answer her question given the bizarre way that she framed it.
She points to the ICRC as saying there's no torture at Guantanamo. Here's the ICRC's actual position:
"The contents of the ICRC's representations and reports are confidential and for the exclusive attention of the relevant detaining authorities. Therefore, in accordance with its usual policy, the organization will not publicly confirm or deny whether the quotations in the article entitled "Red Cross Finds Detainee Abuse in Guantanamo", which appeared in the New York Times of 30 November, reflect findings reported by the ICRC to the United States authorities regarding the conditions of detention and treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay."
So, in order to continue to have access to the prisoners so that they can be able to communicate with their families outside, the ICRC refrains from public condemnation of the jailers.
What else do they do?
"its policy of direct and confidential representations to the detaining authorities"
So they bring their concerns to the torturers in private. Occasionally though, stuff leaks out, like this article in the pinko-commie-terrorist lovin' National Post:
"Health workers violated medical ethics when they helped interrogate terrorism suspects who were tortured at secret CIA prisons overseas, the International Committee of the Red Cross said."
http://www.nationalpost.com/news...html? id=1474333
The OSCE visits that she cites are pretty dubious. An unaffiliated "expert" accompanied their mission to Guantanamo and said conditions there were better than in Belgian prisons, but the OSCE took pains to point out that he did not represent them. Two reports, one in 2005, the other in 2007 both urged that the facility be closed.
Maybe she didn't read that while she was casting about desperately for sources of exoneration. Maybe one doesn't have to know about every scrap of paper Dick Cheney pulls out of his ass to rationalize his policies before speaking out against them. Condi was particularly slimey in that part of the exchange.
Her last bit about water-boarding is actually amazingly bad. Listen to what she says. She says that the president told her that they were not to do anything that violated the USA's legal obligations. Then she says (in typical, gutless bushie fashion) that she didn't authorize anything anyway, she just conveyed the authorization of the president/justice department.
Note: Those Justice Department memos are now the subject of possible legal action because everything from John Yoo's green-lighting crushing the testicles of a suspect's child to the drivel about locking people up in coffins with caterpillars, is legal garbage. Those memos were describing actiosn that were clearly illegal.
Then, the idiot says, "by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture."
That's akin to Nixon's claim that if the president orders something then it's not illegal. Which is a way of saying that the president is above the law. Which is a dangerous thing if you think about it. Imagine, dears, if presidents were above the law. Imagine if president Obama could make any action he thought of become legal. Ooooh! Wouldn't you guys be scared! But you're fine with listening to a 10th-rate moron like Condi Rice justify the president's ordering of torture with that justification!
She yammers on and on about how terrible it would have been to have 3,000 more Americans die in a second attack, and it's quite revolting, given how the first 3,000 Americans died because of the supreme incompetence and laziness of the administration she served AND because nothing, but nothing, was gained with all of her torture.
In short, what Rice offered there was an extended string of falsehoods, irrelevancies, mistakes and evasions that do nothing to erase the fact that she's both a war criminal and an incompetent.
What say you folks now???
2. Actually Paul, I don't know anything about the imbecile who writes the "barton bulletin" and all his stupid, insulting garbage about liberal softies and their raggedy ann dolls.
I don't particularly care about what the dingbat has to say about anything when he spouts garbage like that.
Idiots like him make the world LESS safe, for all their chest-beating about how much we owe them.
Stress positions are torture. Water-boarding is torture. Sleep deprivation is torture. Locking people in coffins is torture.
Perhaps Mr. Barton's brain got screwed up when he was water-boarded?
Regarding your ignorance about the Geneva Conventions:
The ICRC (of which Ms. Rice was so eager to manipulate) says this:
"Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention states: "Should any doubt arise as to whether persons, having committed a belligerent act and having fallen into the hands of the enemy," belong to any of the categories for POWs, "such persons shall enjoy the protection of the present Convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal."
In 1987, Ronald Reagan's Deputy Legal Advisor to the State Department said the following:
"We [the United States] do support the principle that, should any doubt arise as to whether a person is entitled to combatant status, he be so treated until his status has been determined by a competent tribunal, as well as the principle that if a person who has fallen into the power of an adversary is not held as a prisoner of war and is to be tried for an offense arising out of the hostilities, he should have the right to assert his entitlement before a judicial tribunal and to have that question adjudicated."
Face it Paul, Condi is an idiot. And your rationalizations for your sadism are wearing thin.
3. Paul,
Let's review: You started off with the insults. According to your own logic you lost before you started. And that's the first correct thing you've said here.
(For the record, I really don't care about the name-calling. What infuriates me about you people is how you think you've got the right to toss insults about when it's you who are so lamentably stupid.)
Condi defends Guantanamo by stating that the ICRC hasn't criticized them, when the facts are:
1. The ICRC's policy is to not criticize governments publicly but to express its concerns privately.
2. Very strong ICRC criticism about torture at Guantanamo was leaked to the media, including the National Post.
Condi mentions the OSCE as saying that Guanatanamo is on par with a typical medium-security prison in Europe.
The facts are:
1. The person who wrote that was not a member of the OSCE but an academic who accompanied an OSCE delegation to Guantanamo
2. The OSCE condemnend Guantanamo in two reports, said it lowered the USA's moral standing in the world and called for it to close.
Condi said that indefinite detentions were a problem, and that the bush II regime tried to bring that to an end with their invention of the Military Tribunals.
The fact is that the Military Tribunals have been almost universally condemned as illegitimate kangaroo courts, with military lawyers resigning in order to not have to participate in a legal sham.
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/12/nation/na-gitmo12
As Condi tells her interviewer, the SCOTUS itself (a very conservative body dominated by Republican nominees!) condemned it. It must have been pretty bad for that SCOTUS to have to have done that.
Condi says that water-boarding is not torture and therefore is not illegal by simply insisting that this is so because the president said they could do it.
That's it. Read that again. Listen to her say that. Then stop and try really, really hard to grasp the significance of that.
I'll wait Paul. Scruntch up your eyes and furrow your brows and use that little brain of yours and THINK!!
COME ON PAUL!!! You can do it!!! THINK!!!
...
Okay? Hopefully you've figured out that stating that the president's okay is all that's needed to make something legal is a very dangerous precedent. Why, Obama could make his FEMA re-education camps legal if presidents had that power, couldn't he?
Now, Condi justified all of this torture by stating that terrorism constitutes the greatest threat the USA has ever faced. The terrorists are apparently scarier than the Nazis and the Soviets. This is due to the fact that only the terrorists attacked the homeland of the United States.
1. It's false to say that the Nazis never attacked the U.S. homeland. full stop.
2. It's irrelevant to the question. Do you need to torture someone, is that person so ruthless that torture is needed to protect the USA, simply because they managed to conduct one attack on the U.S. mainland? Were the Nazi's not a ruthless, evil organization controlling one of the world's major industrial nations? Did not the Soviets have ICBMs that targeted the USA and were they not inspired by a powerful, fanatical ideology?
If torture was not required to be official state policy in either WWII or the Cold War, then it isn't required against Al Qaeda.
Now, I'll bother to watch that Holder video, but I was turned off by the stupid rhetoric at the site hosting it and I honestly don't give a shit about Obama's opinion because I've never been very impressed with him.
But I'd like to see some acknowledgement of my case against Condi's blithering besides your usual off-topic drivel.
4. Paul,
Did I say that a leak from an ICRC proved that there was torture going on?
No. No I did not.
What it does do is demolish Condi's claim that the ICRC has no complaints about Gitmo. It demolishes that completely.
For the record though, you must admit that the ICRC is a respectable organization and that their allegations must be given at least some weight, right?
Suspected terrorists have the rights to:
1. Have their status determined by a competent tribunal
and
2. Have the right to either a civil court or to be tried by a military tribunal consistent with the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (That's what your "needed to parallel regular military tribunals" string of words mean. The UCMJ already has an internationally recognized, legitimate process for deciding these questions and bush II's tribunals failed to meet that level.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/29/AR2006062900928_2.html
These are not simply prisoners of war, as your team admits when categorizing them with the made-up term "illegal combatants." Many of the men held at Guantanamo were innocent. Some of them were handed over by Afghan warlords seeking to collect bounties. Condi, bush II, et. al. were basically saying that they've scooped up some men, accused them of being terrorists, and want to hold them as prisoners in an unending war, and they want to put them on trials tailor-made to guarantee convictions.
That's pretty chilling when you think about it.
It is an opinion that the Military Tribunals were kangaroo courts. It was the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States. Deal With It.
And when military prosecutors resign in disgust rather than participate in legal shams, that isn't just something to roll your eyes over. It means something. It means we have to take this issue SERIOUSLY.
Condi is WRONG. "Enhanced interrogation methods" ARE torture. It's a FACT. To take but one example, stress positions:
"In 1956, the CIA commissioned two Cornell Medical Center researchers to study Soviet interrogation techniques, including standing for extended periods of time. They concluded, "The KGB simply made victims stand for eighteen to twenty-four hoursproducing 'excruciating pain' as ankles double in size, skin becomes 'tense and intensely painful,' blisters erupt oozing 'watery serum,' heart rates soar, kidneys shut down, and delusions deepen."
http://www.slate.com/features/whatistorture/Taxonomy.html
Also at the site you can see that the Israeli Supreme Court declared stress positions to be a form of torture.
Let's remember that the legal opinion you're relying on to exonerate these practices was the Gonzales Justice Department. You're relying on John Yoo who believes that the president can have the testicles of a terrorist SUSPECT'S child smashed in order to obtain testimony. The madman actually believes that there is no national or international statute that prevents the president from doing that.
Those legal opinions are garbage. The United States is bound by the Geneva Conventions to respect the humanity of all individuals it captures. If there is any question as to the legal status of a detainee this must be decided by a competent tribunal. Not only is inflicting bodily pain illegal, so too is degrading and humiliating treatment.
You keep trying to bring up Obama and his replicating some of the actions of the bush II regime as if it means anything to me.
These things are illegal and to the extent that Obama does them he should be condemned as well.
Finally, you're right about the past evidence of torture and summary executions in the past. That's why I was careful to say that it was not "official state policy" rather than to simply state that it never happened. I mentioned how Ronald Reagan had said that torture was never justified under any circumstances when the fact is that US-backed death squads were killing and torturing with impunity throughout Central America during the 1980s and the School of the Americas was found to have been teaching torture methods to them:
http://www.soaw.org/article.php?id=98
It might be understandable that somebody resorts to torture under extreme circumstances. It might be understandable, but it is hardly ever justified and it should NEVER become official policy.
I would understand it if someone killed a person who murdered someone's loved one but was released on a legal technicality. I would hesitate to say that person was justified. And I would certainly not want such individual justice to be legalized. And I would especially not want the agents of the state (police, military) to be able to decide who is innocent and who should be tortured until they confess their guilt before they're executed.
These are not complex questions. This is whether we have Western conceptions of justice and the rule of law or whether we embrace the legal standards of the People's Republic of China.
I know where I stand. You appear to be of the "guilty until proven innocent" standard.
[for the record, i've pushed "publish" twice now and it hasn't posted and it hasn't told me what the problem is. If this shows up three times, my apologies.]
Monday, May 4, 2009
Deleted Comment
In the brief, futile debate on Afghanistan that I began with "Brian" of the "Canada-Afghanistan Blog," I also encountered Canada's version of Christopher Hitchens, Terry Glavin. I had great expectations of a vigorous debate with both those individuals, but, alas, as I've detailed in tiresome detail here at the schoolyard, twas not to be. Glavin deletes contrarian comments on his blog without even thinking about it, and launches into tirades alternating between self-pity about his persecutions at the hands of the anti-war crowd and insults to his opponents. "Brian" simply ignored the comments for a short while before resorting to his colleague's practice of deleting them. After some empty-headed attempts at condescension, "Brian" said that he'd delete everything we (anti-war readers) typed from now on, unless we said something intelligent (by his standards). I typed what was to be my last missive (which was later deleted) but then re-read his critique of my posts and noticed that he'd called me "anti-American." Well, that just couldn't stand, so I typed the following:
This was subsequently deleted as well. But I think there's something worthwhile in that so I've re-posted it here (after considerable delay).
Finally, I can't resist mentioning that one of the things Glavin wails about in his pity-parties is how he's called all sorts of awful names by the anti-war crowd; "imperialist," "war-monger," etc. To which I can only say, "boo-hoo-hoo-hoo!" As if Glavin and Brian don't sling the insults about. Maybe they should take up their painful sufferings with "Taliban Jack."
Oh, but I just noticed you called me "Anti-American." Before I leave you to the brain-destroying writings of Rosie Di-Fucking-Moron, let me say this:
"America" doesn't = "Bagram Airbase."
The United States of America does stuff you know. Because it's the most powerful country in the world. Some of that stuff is nasty. If you understood how the world really works, you'd know that. But the United States is a big country with lots of people and a rich culture. It is more than the depredations of its foreign policy elites and their killing machines. If you choose to equate "America" with Reagan's deathsquads, bush II's Guantanamo and Bagram (which is now Obama's Bagram) that's your business. But given the abhorrent nature of those abominations, I rather think that your equating them with the USA makes you the "Anti-American."
A last word Brian. I think you're deluded. I don't think you're an idiot. I actually think that if you blind yourself to the fundamentals of this project and our involvement in it, there's enough to the rationalizationis, the "cover story" to justify your devotion to it. But there's a reason we [the West] has been there since 2001 and the country remains a basketcase with a GROWING insurgency. And that's because the people in charge DON'T GIVE A SHIT about the people of Afghanistan.Terry Glavin is obviously too far gone to be reasoned with. And, for the record, immature, what with his deleting comments and heaping insult after insult upon anyone who disagrees with him. But I thought you had a stronger core than that.
If people disagree they will go back-and-forth on a subject, obviously. They don't agree. They dispute with each other. But if you want to cocoon yourself with the ravings of Glavin, DiManno, and Canadian officials who speak mindlessly of "progress" year after year after fucking year, then you're hopeless.
This was subsequently deleted as well. But I think there's something worthwhile in that so I've re-posted it here (after considerable delay).
Finally, I can't resist mentioning that one of the things Glavin wails about in his pity-parties is how he's called all sorts of awful names by the anti-war crowd; "imperialist," "war-monger," etc. To which I can only say, "boo-hoo-hoo-hoo!" As if Glavin and Brian don't sling the insults about. Maybe they should take up their painful sufferings with "Taliban Jack."
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Friday, May 1, 2009
"Fisking" "Peter"
I don't know what's up with my use of quotation marks in the title. I started this post over a week ago. Here it is ...
Dr. Dawg blogged about a week ago about how Obama was releasing the torture memos of the bush II regime which the American Civil Liberties Union had sued for, but he was insisting that no CIA or other institutional torturers would ever be charged for their crimes, saying they were just serving their country. "Only following orders" as the Nuremburg Defense goes.
A few authoritarian goons and torture apologists tried to take issue with this rather inarguable analogy and you can check out the debate there at the Dawg's site.
But commentator "Peter" and I got into a bit of a discussion and you can watch it build to the crescendo that I intend to "Fisk" (apparently a process of critiquing someone by inserting questions, comments and counter-arguments to their work between cut-and-pasted snippets of it -- the term originated in some lame-brain right-winger's attempt to discredit a piece by Mid-East journalist Robert Fisk) below. "Peter's" offering was such a titanic dropping of "War on Terror" bullshit and delusion that I felt it would be a good subject for a post.
The quote begins with "Peter" responding to my statement that his confused attempts to defend himself resemble a mouse dashing madly this way and that way, in a panic, trying to escape from its discoverer:
"Peter" resorted to this bizarre tactic a couple of times, ... alleging violent impulses among those people opposed to immunity from prosecution to torturers. Evidently it's the torture apologists like "Peter" who were feeling threatened in that discussion.
The very discussion in which "Peter" makes this ridiculous claim is one where US torturers are being granted immunity for actions that they knew were illegal at the time. And it is "Peter" and his ilk who are trying to deny this illegality in the face of overwhelming evidence.
What meaningless crap. "Peter" is attempting to argue that US officials never perform morally dubious actions while justifying themselves with claims that they are obeying a greater good than the rule of law, that US officials have never used "reasons of state" to defend crimes against humanity. But who is not as "fettered" as "Peter's" imaginary law-abiding Anglo-Americans and Swedes?
Not by a long shot buddy. Unless you can make any fool claim "arguably."
"Peter" is stretching things again. Earlier in the discussion it seemed as if "Peter" was saying that my calling for the rule of law in what were clearly, inarguably, illegal actions made my whole case illegitimate. And, as others have argued, even if somebody is "itching" to see somebody else punished, that is no reason NOT to have an investigation and/or a trial.
But let's continue with our "Peter" ...
This is going to get good folks. First of all, the morality play is about the rule of law. It's about preventing our governments from having the legal power to torture ANYONE, whether they're Al Qaeda or some poor shlub turned in by an opportunistic Afghan warlord looking for a bounty or an anti-government protestor.
Wow! Look whose got a "nice little morality play" going on. "Peter," you contemptible piece of shit, 500,000 Iraqi children died needlessly as a result of USA-UK enforced UN sanctions. (And, for the record, there's no cause to blame that on Saddam Hussein.) Millions have been made refugees. Hundreds of thousands have died violent deaths. Billions of dollars have gone missing or gone to Dick "fucking-puke-scumbag" Cheney's pals at Haliburton. "Peter," you're a pathetic moron.
Imbecile.
My bloodlust??? You fucking idiot!! You're the one slavering to defend torture!! People like "Peter" are unreal, are they not?
That last bit of incoherent rambling was directed at another participant in the discussion, "Sir Francis" of "Dred Tory." As near as I can figure out, he's trying to say that holding the USA accountable for specific actions is akin to blaming the USA for "everything," which would be completely unfair, were it true. It makes as much sense if "Peter" responded to a complaint about his not flushing the toilet after he'd finished by screaming: "You always blame me for EVERYTHING that goes WRONG in the WORLD!!!! WAHHHHH!!!!!"
Dr. Dawg blogged about a week ago about how Obama was releasing the torture memos of the bush II regime which the American Civil Liberties Union had sued for, but he was insisting that no CIA or other institutional torturers would ever be charged for their crimes, saying they were just serving their country. "Only following orders" as the Nuremburg Defense goes.
A few authoritarian goons and torture apologists tried to take issue with this rather inarguable analogy and you can check out the debate there at the Dawg's site.
But commentator "Peter" and I got into a bit of a discussion and you can watch it build to the crescendo that I intend to "Fisk" (apparently a process of critiquing someone by inserting questions, comments and counter-arguments to their work between cut-and-pasted snippets of it -- the term originated in some lame-brain right-winger's attempt to discredit a piece by Mid-East journalist Robert Fisk) below. "Peter's" offering was such a titanic dropping of "War on Terror" bullshit and delusion that I felt it would be a good subject for a post.
The quote begins with "Peter" responding to my statement that his confused attempts to defend himself resemble a mouse dashing madly this way and that way, in a panic, trying to escape from its discoverer:
Reading you is like watching a frightened mouse...
Frightened of what? If all you are saying is that I am conflicted over this, shoot me or maybe waterboard me.
"Peter" resorted to this bizarre tactic a couple of times, ... alleging violent impulses among those people opposed to immunity from prosecution to torturers. Evidently it's the torture apologists like "Peter" who were feeling threatened in that discussion.
The countries of the Anglosphere (and in some ways the Americans above all) and certain others like the Scandinavians are marked by a firm cultural adherence to the rule of law and a strict accountability of leaders to it.
The very discussion in which "Peter" makes this ridiculous claim is one where US torturers are being granted immunity for actions that they knew were illegal at the time. And it is "Peter" and his ilk who are trying to deny this illegality in the face of overwhelming evidence.
There is little concept of higher morality or raison d'etat that plays except in extremis, but of course most of the world is not so fettered.
What meaningless crap. "Peter" is attempting to argue that US officials never perform morally dubious actions while justifying themselves with claims that they are obeying a greater good than the rule of law, that US officials have never used "reasons of state" to defend crimes against humanity. But who is not as "fettered" as "Peter's" imaginary law-abiding Anglo-Americans and Swedes?
France ...Oh for god's sake! Pass the "freedom fries"! Heavens! The turd has insulted Eternal France!!! As a leftist I must fan myself and clutch my pearls in shock at this slight to the country je tous adore!!! "France! France! France!!" What a bunch of twisted morons these right-wingers are.
...has more of this kind of crap in its past than most others and let's not even begin to talk Russia and China.No!! Not the glorious Russia and China!! One of 'em used to be "socialist" and the other one "still" is!! They can't be nasty! They just can't!! "Peter" might be surprised to know that critics of the USA's torture policies are quite capable of knowing about France's nasty imperialist actions, and that the totalitarian dictatorships of the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China were awful both domestically and abroad. We're also aware that Putin's Russia is another blight. But it's quite rich hearing from an apologist for US torture about the behaviour of totalitarian dictatorships in an attempt to "school" critics of US torture. The reason that the USA has not descended into the wholesale, multiple holocausts of Nazi Germany or Stalin's USSR has more to do with the vocal criticisms of people like us (who decry torture) than with people like "Peter" who rationalize it. Right here you can see the utterly insane, intellectually bankrupt starting point for these monkeys.
Anyway, so the Americans find themselves in a war against a terrorist, irregular enemy that practices savagery against civilians, decapitates innocents on video and executes women for adultery in public.Our enemies are bad people. Got it.
They [USA] bend/ stretch/break the rules about prisoner interrogation, not to cause death or injury, but to maximize fear, humiliation, degradation and psychological terror in murky and semi-public circumstances and under cover of putative legal authority."Putative" means "commonly accepted or supposed" or "assumed to exist or have existed" and "Peter" is stretching things to say that the Gonzales Justice Department's definitions of what constituted torture and what didn't were "commonly accepted" by the rest of humanity. These actions are all clearly illegal. Here's Geneva Convention III, Article 3, on the treatment of prisoners. Note what is banned:
(c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;Let's also not forget that over 100 prisoners taken by the USA in its "War on Terror" have died mysteriously. I think even John Yoo would be hard-pressed to rationalize that.
This leads to an outcry and ultimately a reversal, generated from within rather than in response to pressures from Canadian bloggers.Well, "Peter" you stupid fucking moron, Canadian bloggers haven't taken credit for any of this. But don't for a goddamned minute imagine that this reversal came all of its own as a result of the bush II regime or the Obama administration acting in a vacuum. Sustained outrage from people like the Canadian bloggers "Peter" so derides, especially from USian bloggers, helped to create this reversal.
So far, so good, arguably even healthy.
Not by a long shot buddy. Unless you can make any fool claim "arguably."
So, what happens or should happen to the guys who did it? You are, in your own words, "itching" to see these guys punished ...
"Peter" is stretching things again. Earlier in the discussion it seemed as if "Peter" was saying that my calling for the rule of law in what were clearly, inarguably, illegal actions made my whole case illegitimate. And, as others have argued, even if somebody is "itching" to see somebody else punished, that is no reason NOT to have an investigation and/or a trial.
But let's continue with our "Peter" ...
because presumably you have constructed yourself a nice litle morality play starring Good and Evil,
This is going to get good folks. First of all, the morality play is about the rule of law. It's about preventing our governments from having the legal power to torture ANYONE, whether they're Al Qaeda or some poor shlub turned in by an opportunistic Afghan warlord looking for a bounty or an anti-government protestor.
mainly by ignoring who and what they were fighting
Wow! Look whose got a "nice little morality play" going on. "Peter," you contemptible piece of shit, 500,000 Iraqi children died needlessly as a result of USA-UK enforced UN sanctions. (And, for the record, there's no cause to blame that on Saddam Hussein.) Millions have been made refugees. Hundreds of thousands have died violent deaths. Billions of dollars have gone missing or gone to Dick "fucking-puke-scumbag" Cheney's pals at Haliburton. "Peter," you're a pathetic moron.
and giving the words "international law" the unquestionable authority a toddler gives to "My Daddy says...".
Imbecile.
But I take my good friend sir francis's research seriously and note this quote from the trailer: "You had young soldiers with little training just as the rules were changing and they didn't know what the new rules were." Obama decides the old order will changeth but that the circumstances do not merit prosecutions. Not unlike the approach Mandela and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission took.
No firing squad at dawn to satisfy thwap's bloodlust. Bummer.
My bloodlust??? You fucking idiot!! You're the one slavering to defend torture!! People like "Peter" are unreal, are they not?
Meanwhile, sir francis knows this is all--and I do mean all--the result of American imperial ambitions that have turned peaceful agrarian reformers into murderous religious fanatics, and also the corruption of the ideals of Jefferson and Paine that he never had much time for anyway. Could be, I suppose, but then as sir francis predictably lays everything from genocide to road rage at the feet of the rapacious Yankee trader and his traitorous Canadian satraps, listening to him eventually comes to resemble being forced to listen to extremely loud rock music for hours before being interrogated by U.S. Special Forces. Inevitably sensory deprivation sets in.
That last bit of incoherent rambling was directed at another participant in the discussion, "Sir Francis" of "Dred Tory." As near as I can figure out, he's trying to say that holding the USA accountable for specific actions is akin to blaming the USA for "everything," which would be completely unfair, were it true. It makes as much sense if "Peter" responded to a complaint about his not flushing the toilet after he'd finished by screaming: "You always blame me for EVERYTHING that goes WRONG in the WORLD!!!! WAHHHHH!!!!!"
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