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Audacity of Truth
Flyswatter in Chief:
"He had this fly that was persistently buzzing around him during the interview...he swatted his hand and he said ‘I got the sucker’...it was a, you know, Dirty Harry ‘make my day’ moment."- The NYT's John Harwood, describing Obama's killing of a fly - 6/16/09
An America-hating far leftie weighs in on Independence Day
Further proof that the self-loathing that comprises the far left doesn’t take breaks, even for a holiday. The Philly Inquirer’s Chris Satullo scribbles:
Put the fireworks in storage.
Cancel the parade.
Tuck the soaring speeches in a drawer for another time.
This year, America doesn’t deserve to celebrate its birthday. This Fourth of July should be a day of quiet and atonement.
For we have sinned.
We have failed to pay attention. We’ve settled for lame excuses. We’ve spit on the memory of those who did that brave, brave thing in Philadelphia 232 years ago.
The America those men founded should never torture a prisoner.
The America they founded should never imprison people for years without charge or hearing.
The America they founded should never ship prisoners to foreign lands, knowing their new jailers might torture them.
Such abuses once were committed by the arrogant crowns of Europe, spawning rebellion.
Today, our nation does such things in the name of our safety. Petrified, unwilling to take the risks that love of liberty demands, we close our eyes.
We have done such things, on orders from the Oval Office. We have done them, without general outrage or shame.
Abu Ghraib. Guantanamo. CIA secret prisons. “Rendition” of prisoners to foreign torture chambers.
[...]
We have betrayed the July 4 creed. We trample the vows we make, hand to heart.
Don’t imagine that only the torturer’s hand bears the guilt. The guilt reaches deep inside our Capitol, and beyond that – to us.
Our silence is complicit. In our name, innocents were jailed, humans tortured, our Constitution mangled. And we said so little.
[...]
So put out no flags.
Sing no patriotic hymns.
We deserve no Fourth this year.
Let us atone, in quiet and humility. Let us spend the day truly studying the example of our Founders. May we earn a new birth of courage before our nation’s birthday next rolls around.
Things like this just don’t compute with me. Even when I was a leftie, I was never ashamed to fly my flag on any day, especially on days like Independence Day, nor was I hestitant to say how much I loved this country, even during the times when I felt it was veering off course. That continued even through the Clinton years after I saw the light and became a conservative. There were many, many things Bill Clinton did during his tenure that made me ashamed of him, but I sure as hell was never ashamed of my country.Â
That’s where (or one of the places) where Satullo veers wildly off track. Ignoring for a minute his exaggerations, misrepresentations and lies about the direction this country’s gone since GWB was elected president, he makes the mistake so many other self-loathing far lefites make when expressing their disgust over a president’s policies: he implicates our country itself. “America sucks!” they whine because “the President sucks!!”
Show of hands how many of you hated this country when Bill Clinton was president? I bet there aren’t very many. That’s because in spite of the many disagreements and outright disgust that many conservatives had for President Clinton, one thing they never forgot was how fortunate they were to live in this country, to be able to fly (not burn) the flag, a right that hundreds of thousands of American troops died to protect and uphold.  Most conservatives flew the flag during the Clinton years in spite of their dislike of both him and his liberal policies, because they knew he wasn’t always going to be president and that one would come along and right some of his wrongs.Â
And he did.
Deep-in-the-gut love for this country keeps conservatives in it even though the candidates they want to win an election sometimes in the end turn out not to be the victor(s) on election night. You won’t find many conservatives threatening to leave this country and move to countries like our neighbors to the north Canada if their candidate doesn’t win. They stay on and fight. You don’t find many conservatives who have to “seek therapy” if their candidate loses an election. They man-up, and prepare for the coming battles.  They realize that, after all, this country is indeed worth building up and fighting for, no matter who is sitting in the big chair.
None of this is to say that liberals aren’t patriotic. I know many who are, and I’m sure most of you do, too. But there are, I think, a not so insignificant number of far left self-haters like Chris Satullo just itching to find a reason to drag the country down to their level. The old saying “misery loves company” applies here, methinks.
Warner Todd Huston says it all here:
Happy July Fourth, folks. Be proud of this great nation, Satullo’s nonsense aside. The U.S.A. is still the shining light on a hill shining the light of freedom on all the world. Anti-Americans like Satullo might have blinders on, but for those willing to see, we stand like a rock.
Unfurl those flags and let freedom wave.
*salutes* Amen! 
  Â
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“Final word, Dan”
Perhaps we should let someone else have the final word:
“Second, one form of torture was experienced by a considerable number of Air Force prisoners of war during efforts to coerce false confessions from them. The prisoners were required to stand, or sit, at attention for exceedingly long periods of time-in one extreme case, day and night for a week at a time with only brief respites. In a few cases, the standing was aggravated by extreme cold. This form of torture had several distinct advantages for extorting confessions.
In the simple torture situation-the “bamboo splinters” technique of popular imagination-the contest is clearly one between the individual and his tormentor. Can he endure pain 1)beyond the point to ‘which the interrogator will go in inflicting pain? The answer for the interrogator is all too frequently yes.
Where the individual is told to stand at attention for long periods, an intervening factor is introduced. The immediate source of pain is not the interrogator but the victim himself. . . . The motivational strength of the individual is likely to exhaust itself in this internal encounter. . . .. Most frequently, although not invariably, the extent to which the interrogators in North Korea and China were willing or permitted to inflict physical punishment was very limited. Generally, it appears to have been limited to cuffs, slaps and kicks, and sometimes nmerely to threats and insults. Returnees who underwent long periods of standing and sitting, however, report no other experience could be more excruciating.
For the interrogator, forced standing has still further advantages. It is consistent with formal adherence to mythical principles of legality and humaneness important to the Communists. . . . Adherence to these mythical principles also protects the interrogator from potential punishment at some future time for mistreating prisoners. The Communists, furthermore, can gain a considerable propaganda advantage when victims who are released truthfully state that no one ever laid a hand on them.
Biderman, A. D. (1957). Communist attempts to elicit false confessions from Air Force prisoners of war. Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, 33(9), 616-624.
“ I do not find your teary-eyed concern for the throat-cutters touching at all.”
Yes, this is a frequent misunderstanding, that opposition to torture and the undermining of basic civil liberties – an opposition that unites lefties, liberals, libertarians, and principled conservatives – is actually motivated by an moronically bleeding-heartish “teary-eyed concern for the throat-cutters” – what a weak, feeble, sickening attitude, right? $@%in’ sissies! (Granted, there are some followers of a certain long-ago Judean preacher fellow – among others – who might disagree, but . . . )
This easily slips into other fantasies – that those voicing such opposition aren’t just pathologically soft-hearted, but actual terrorist-lovers – supporters, allies, even their “best friends” – indeed, they probably hang out with ‘em “celebrat[ing]” Supreme Court decisions doubtlessly authored by yet more terrorist-loving traitors. Another such argument is that it’s instead (or additionally?) motivated merely by craven politicking – “ The ones who screech about torture most loudly are the ones who want political power here, even at the expense of the wrong side winning the WOT,” where supposed treason isn’t even motivated by misguided ideals, but base opportunism. (People often do attribute these sorts of schemingly deceitful motives to despised outgroups, while their own group is acting in pure good faith, selflessly motivated by high &serious concerns and careful consideration.)
Now, that’s BS, of course. I could try to explain why so many Americans oppose these things – torture and the broader undermining of civil liberties – but I want to try something different. (Plus, I do tend to go on and on in a way that arguably counts as torture under several international agreements . . . ). So: pretend for a moment that we’re not hideous American-hating monsters or pathetic fools or cartoon villains or dangerous subhumans, but your fellow citizens – decidedly imperfect, sometimes mistaken, but generally well-meaning, decent people acting in good faith. I want you – if anyone’s still reading, that is – to try to answer: Why might we oppose torture & the broader undermining of basic civil liberties? What reasons and explanations might we give? I’m not asking you to recognize torture as torture, etc., here – only, for the purposes of argument, that we see it as such.
“‘d suggest you look at your compadres on the left, who have preached and practiced the moral relativism”
Yes, that’s a rather dreadful irony, that liberals – along with others, as mentioned – have ended up struggling against this recent wave of right wing moral relativism, permissiveness, and destruction of long-standing values. At least such compadres – rightly or wrongly – were aiming for things like greater freedom, happiness, sex, mercy, etc. In contrast, the folks who ape them nowadays to so to justify torturing both prisoners and the Constitution.
“No more than you and your kind are preoccupied with Pres. Bush.”
Who is, of course, the current President, as opposed to a guy whom middle school kids only know as an ex-President and highschoolers as a face on tv from when they were little.
“if you want to see who is the best agent for radicalizing terrorists look no further than our wonderful, “unbiased”, watchdog media.”
Besides the ‘liberal media’ fantasy, there’s a deeper issue. It’s hard to get to, because we inhabit such drastically different ideospheres – so at least some folks on the right seem to be in a world where we’re always winning without the slightest problem (yet the enemy is always horribly powerful and looming in our doorstep), where we’re always right in everything we do, without even mistakes, and where politicians & gov’t can be trusted utterly (unless they’re Democrats). But trying to squeeze past that, the great principle we value here is that truth is more important than convenient stories and useful propaganda. Although, yes, you seem to see the media’s occasional faltering attempts to live up to this value as merely more American-hating, terrorist-loving lies. Ah well.
- ‘America: At least we don’t behead people’ is not the motto I want my kids learning.
“Yes, Dan, that’s a great idea. Let’s treat it like a law enforcement problem, that’s the ticket.”
Never understood this argument. It seems pretty obvious that a lot of counter-terrorist work is basically a law enforcement problem, like dealing with the mob or drug cartels. A lot of the rest involves winning hearts and minds (hate that term). Certainly military force – from limited to extensive – might be required, but that’s just one aspect.
“The fact is, we have records on what happens to every one of the terrorists we apprehend. Your ominous hint that maybe they just disappeared . . .places you squarely in John Murtha/Dick Durbin territory.
Eww, John Murtha. Don’t you just hate former Eagle Scouts/Vietnam vets/two-time Purple Heart recipients? (anti-abortion & gun control too). I bet he parties with bin Laden.
But more seriously – that’s nonsense. I mean, ok, I’m sure somewhere, someone has (or had) records on many of the terrorists we’ve apprehended – Abu Ghraib, from what I’ve read, was simply so chaotic that I’m honestly uncertain how good their record-keeping was, completely apart from any more sinister goals. Obviously that doesn’t matter unless they’re reasonably at least quasi-public. The reality is that people have been disappeared -see for example “black sites”, “extraordinary rendition”, “ghost detainees”, etc, (wikipedia’s a start). Many of these people surely are Not Our Friends. Others – well . . .
I don’t want my kids having to add ’secret prisons and ghost detainees” to those lines about purple mountain majesties/ above the fruited plain. It throws the rhythm off.
“Yes, Dan, but we are talking about BILLIONS of Muslims.”
How many Muslims are there in the world?
More relevantly, it’s kinda clear that the number of anti-American terrorists is actually pretty small, and a fair number appear to be somewhat incompetent or small-timish. This isn’t to dismiss the very real – and absolute worst-case scenario, indescribably nightmarish -risk, or the fact that – if well-organized and -equipped – you don’t need many at all to cause significant (if limited) death and damage. But honestly, it’s not like there are hordes of terrorists pouring over the walls. I can understand, though, why trying to live with the prospect would be so terrifyingly unmanning – after all, it’s not like we spent most of the last couple of decades locked in simmering combat with a implacable, ruthless, highly aggressive and utterly inimical totalitarian superpower with countless nuclear missiles pointed right at us.
“We most certainly agree on that. ”
Well, sort of. I have to admit that my hopes for that kind of future don’t involve “stomping” every group I dislike or disagree with, but YMMV . . .
“What case is that?” [involving extraordinary rendition to Syria]
Maher Arar.
Of course, the inevitable result of these sorts of operations is to add onto all such statements the addendum: “. . . that we know of.”
“How do you get information out of an individual who has sworn to God to kill as many people as possible and never surrender? Perhaps, a hot cup of coffee and saying pleeeeeeeeeease? ”
Oddly enough, perhaps. For example, a number of WWII veterans who interrogated Nazis have insisted that “We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture“, while other professionals have made similar arguments.
Now, I really dislike arguing against torture on pragmatic grounds – it’s a bit like dutifully explaining that rape or baby-eating is wrong because it’s inefficient. Nevertheless, I’d bet – no, in fact, I know – that everyone here at least implicitly knows that torture is deeply unreliable.
It’s also interesting to consider the essential insincerity of the more or less official response re: torture – that is, we don’t torture! but we’re completely justified! Now, one might argue simply that something isn’t torture – for example, if the specific accusation was ‘you gave them fresh sweet corn with butter!’, unless that’s some sort of euphemism, one might respond yes or no, but definitely so?. (The infamous frat hazing excuse is of this type – it may make decent people want to vomit, but it’s internally coherent. Wrong, but coherent. Likewise, one might admit to torture, but insist that it was necessary – ‘yes, we applied wires to his genitals and turned the current on, but it was the only way to save the human race from total extermination at the hands of the Daleks!’ Again, in our case, wrong, but coherent. But the common insistence that ‘it;d not torture, but we’re totally justified – uh-uh.
My final word ……….
Dopeler effect, commonly referred to as DanS disease: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter, when they come at you rapidly.
You may actually believe all this ethereal glibido you spout however, all talk and no action at the end of the day does not get it done Dan. It never has and never will.
England is looking for more easy to deceive fools, check it out. You might find your slice of cake yet.
Hell, they might even believe you’re serious.
Comparing the Islamic fanatics to Nazis?? Are you kidding me? They are two completely different enemies. Using WW II techniques against these people would be absolutely fruitless. Yeah, let’s play ping pong with them.
On the other hand, harsh interrogation techniques HAVE worked.
Why Extreme Interrogation Works
That information helped uncover several plots that SAVED LIVES!!!
Yes, Dan, it is a fantasy. I completely made the whole thing up.
Media Bias Basics
Gosh, Dan, that would be MOST Americans, millions of them, so it must be true, huh? That’s ok, denial is a symptom, it’s not your fault.
Don’t know where that came from. I don’t recall anyone here saying the we never make mistakes.
Except in the case of 9/11. But what the heck, it was only 3,000 people, right Dan. All it takes is one or two plots to succeed to kill thousands. The reason it succeeded was because the FBI was shackled with the red tape and bureaucracy of federal law enforcement.
How Many Muslims Are There?
Somewhere between 1.2 and 1.8 billion. Any other information you need?
Interesting article about Arar, though. The only thing I don’t understand is that if we sent him to Syria specifically to be tortured, what information to we gain from it? It was always my understanding that the point of torture was to get information out of someone. Did that happen? It appears not.
There is also one Canadian who doesn’t seem to jump on the “America is evil” bandwagon.
Maher Arar: Why the US won’t (and shouldn’t) let go
It details some of the information against Arar that, strangely enough, most of the “I hate Bush” websites have mysteriously left out.
I almost forgot to address this one. Yes, the same Murtha who accused our troops of “cold blooded” murder by jumping on the bandwagon when the media (that fair and unbiased media that Dan loves so much) broke the “story”.
Now all but one of the Marines has had all the charges dropped, but has Murtha had the courage and fortitude to step up and apologize? Of course not,much like Dan, he ignores it and moves on to another point. By all means, the democrats can have “heroes” like Murtha, he fits in well with them.
Dan, the first rule of holes is that when you’re in one, you stop digging.
NC Cop, mind if I take another inning here?
OK, now you’ve really entered the realm of non compos mentis (at least you have a legal defense now for your position). Even the left admits that upwards of 80% of the reporters and talking heads of the national news media are on their side. The voting patterns and registration numbers back that up. For you to deny it shows very little inclination to exist in the real world.
Well, it oughta be easy to solve it then, shouldn’t it? You’re from New York…have you petitioned the governor to send a NY State Trooper over to Waziristan with an arrest warrant and ask bin Laden to come along peacefully? No? Why not? I mean, you don’t need the Army or Marines if it’s just a law enforcement problem.
Wikipedia is hardly authentic. Especially on topics where committed idealogues (of both sides) can edit and insert false entries at a whim.
NC Cop’s already debunked your drivel on this point, but it’s worth noting that given a reference you can’t refute, your tactic is to change the subject. Disingenuous, but eminently predictable.
Hmmm….can’t see where I ever mentioned him, but since you decided to broach the subject, let’s do discuss it. Particularly, in light of this comment:
First of all, do you know what civil rights and liberties are? They are rights that belong to the citizens of a country. They do NOT belong to captured foreign national terrorists, especially those who wage war in direct violation of internationally accepted conventions. You know, the very people you are most concerned about.
So let’s now talk about the Clinton administration. I’d say firebombing and killing women and children in a compound – American citizens all – is a lot more serious than forcing a captured Jihadi to listen to Christina Aguilera music. In fact, it’s a real violation of “civil liberties”.
So is sending an armed squad into the home of an America citizen to kidnap a boy for the purpose of winning the favor of an America-hating dictator (Note: Dan, that’s your cue to bleat about how we’re unfair to label Fidel as an “America hater”).
Fortunately for Dan, the firebomb victims aren’t around to complain to a sympathetic leftist reporter. Neither was the boy sent back into slavery. So those excesses are all well and good. I’ll bet Dan didn’t write lengthy indignant letters anywhere objecting to “undermining of civil liberties”. If you did, I’d love to see it.
But to bring this all back to the original point: you know who did not write a column about how such excesses made him ashamed of being an American? One Chris Satullo, that’s who. I checked the archives. While harsh interrogation of captured terrorists troubles him and the likes of Dan, real excesses aimed at our own citizens during Clinton’s tenure weren’t worthy of one peep. No breast-beating about how we have sinned. No indictment of the entire nation. No appeals to stop singing patriotic songs and flaggelate ourselves in shame instead. No, to him, those acts were just business as usual…because they were done in the name of good old left-wing political pre-eminence.
And for the record, no, I did not feel complicit when Clinton was engaging in such actions. I still saluted the flag and flew it. ST makes that valid point succinctly:
And there, in one sentence, is a very basic difference between conservatives and leftists. For us, the country comes first. If something is good for the country but bad for a conservative candidate, we don’t mind. It’s why you didn’t see any equivalent of Code Pink during the Clinton invasion of Kosovo. No conservative equivalent of a John Murtha or Dick Durbin looking for ways to slander the troops for political gain. No conservative equivalent of Cindy Sheehan setting up tents in Little Rock. It’s why during the Johnson and Carter administrations you didn’t have conservative senators huddling with the Soviets and suggesting ways they might prevail over American foreign policy – as we now know Ted Kennedy did during the Reagan years. What matters to us is that when America is engaged in a life-or-death conflict, hot or cold, we always want America to win, no matter what party gets the credit.
The left has this 180 degrees opposite. Political power comes first, and if it means America is the worse off for it, well, that’s acceptable. Everything is viewed through the lens of what helps them gain more power. If America loses the WOT but the left gets control of the government, that’s reason to celebrate. Undermine the war effort? Hell, yes…until we get the White House back. It’s why prominent Democrats like Congressman Clyburn ruminated earlier this year about how he was bothered by good news from Iraq – because it hurt Democrat electoral chances.
There’s really nothing more to be said to the Dans of this world…they live in a strange little universe where Jihadis are a figment of our imagination, the president lives in the Fuhrerbunker, and everything would be just fine if we adopted the economic policies that made East Germany great and the political system that’s made Cuba a paradise.
You want to know why we find the likes of Satullo far off to the left? Judge by what they’re willing to accept if done by leftists, as opposed to what elicits crocodile tears when done by anyone else.
Put down the shovel, Dan. Stop digging. But thanks for playing.
Dan, when your party of malcontents insist that you go to the doctor to have a mole removed and replace it with a wart, what will you copy and paste over the affliction?
Well, GWR, that’s a quite impassioned comment. I hope you don’t mind if I address some of the earlier ones first, though . . . but I will try to get to it tonight or tomorrow.
“Dopeler effect, commonly referred to as DanS disease: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter, when they come at you rapidly.”
Gratuitous and dully vacant personal insult aside (what next, ‘your momma’?), I rather like that (and so then they’d be at normal stupid level as they pass you, and appear even extra stupid as they keep going . . .) Interestingly, the Doppler effect also works with electromagnetic radiation (light, for example) as well as sound waves. So stars and such that are receding far away into the distance – buh-bye! – appear shifted toward the red end of the spectrum, while ones growing ever closer look bluer.
Hmm.. .
Ok, done amusing myself. And of course, this is disgustingly oversimplified and I don’t understand most of it. Cool, though.
Anyway, careful observation has convinced me that stupidity is part of the fundamental make-up of matter at the atomic level. Sure, everybody knows about protons and neutrons and electrons – but what they’ve been missing is that other atomic particle . . . the moron.
“England is looking for more easy to deceive fools, check it out.”
Ooh – Mrs. S. would love to see London – do you have any more information on this exciting opportunity? I mean, I figure you’d know . . (I wonder if the folks who put together the ARPANET ever imagined their creation developing into an enormous entity largely used to trade playground insults, cat pictures, & etc. . . .?)
“Comparing the Islamic fanatics to Nazis?? Are you kidding me? They are two completely different enemies”
Yep. I mean after all, Germany’s in Europe, not the Middle East! Silly me! And it’s Islamofascists, not Islamonazis! And everybody knows that Nazi generals had a reputation for being laid-back, easy-going, open-minded fellows . . .
More seriously, though, it’s not an utterly absurd argument – the German generals and their interrogators did have more shared culture and history, for example. But it’s just that – an interesting argument, which would need to be supported, and doesn’t have any more of a priori claim to being correct than its opposite. Indeed, it’s perfectly reasonable to think that – while cultural factors are important – there are also shared basics of human psychology.
“On the other hand, harsh interrogation techniques [that is, torture] HAVE worked.”
Indeed. They worked in the early -1690s Salem, Mass., when they helped root out many Wiccanist terrorists (or ‘witches’) who were meeting in terrorists cells (’covens’) and obtaining WMDS – that is, weapons of magical destruction. They had been working in similar trials across much of Europe for several centuries. Indeed, prior to the witchcraze really getting started, they worked to uncover a plot by Jews and lepers to attack France with chemical WMDs (ie, poison the wells and rivers) at the behalf of the Muslim king of Granada. (Rather disturbingly, if you poke around online, you’ll find neonazis, etc. who seem to take this at least partly seriously. I keep touching on the sort of gaping, well, gap between our views, but it could, after all, be a lot bigger.)
Now, I should clarify here, given that some folks seem to believe I think the terrorists who killed ~3000 people in my hometown are imaginary. I’m certainly not saying that. Nor -obviously – are details elicited by torture always wrong. But torture is first and foremost not reliable. If you look at the long 1957 quote (and link) in one of my earlier comments, you’ll notice that one of the main aims that the Communists were using these methods (which we’ve now adopted) for was the production of false confessions. – Indeed, I tend to think that human nature means that the use of torture inevitably moves away from intelligence-gathering into other purposes – but that’s another matter.
“That information helped uncover several plots that SAVED LIVES!!!”
That’s actually not at all clear – it would help if the recordings of those interrogations hadn’t been destroyed, but . . . – and there have been arguments over Abu Zubaydah’s importance and sanity. In some cases it at least seems like we already had information that was supposedly uniquely supplied by AZ, etc . . . According to a Dec. ‘07 Washington Post article featuring John Kiriakou – a former CIA agent who was involved in capturing and interrogating Abu Zubaydah,
“Kiriakou said he now has mixed feelings about the use of waterboarding. He said that he thinks the technique provided a crucial break to the CIA and probably helped prevent attacks, but that he is now convinced that waterboarding is torture, and “Americans are better than that.”
“Maybe that’s inconsistent, but that’s how I feel,” he said. “It was an ugly little episode that was perhaps necessary at that time. But we’ve moved beyond that.”
Probably?
Sounds a very mixed and uncertain bag.
[re: terrorism prevention as a (partly) law enforcement issue] “Except in the case of 9/11. . . . .. The reason it succeeded was because the FBI was shackled with the red tape and bureaucracy of federal law enforcement.
Well, that’s not so clear, either. And I suppose one could try to argue that it was earlier reforms – instituted in reaction to serious abuses, see for example the mid-70s Church Committee – that kept the CIA and FBI from sharing info – but honestly, inter-agency rivalry seems to have been the biggest factor there. And when you look at the major puzzle pieces that agonizingly almost got put together, note, for example, that an alert about “an inordinate number of individuals of investigative interest” who were suddenly attending aviation schools” – and a suggestion that this might represent a “coordinated effort” by bin Laden – came from an FBI guy – that is, a law enforcement official.
Maybe these problems were unsurmountable, but what really would have helped, at least, was clear leadership and focus from the top. Unfortunately, it seems that increasingly frantic attempts – by the outgoing administration, the CIA, etc.- to get Bush to actually pay attention mostly failed. Can we say that a Gore administration – or even an alternative-universe Bush who spent more time reading memos with titles like “Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US and less reading stories like My Pet Goat – would have prevented 9/11? Absolutely not. 20/20 hindsight, y’know. Even with a more focused administration – and we can’t be sure we’d have gotten one – and a lot more knowledge, there’s no guarantee at all that we would have been able to identify, find and stop that handful of individuals in time. But it’s hard not to imagine we would have had a better chance.
“Don’t know where that came from. I don’t recall anyone here saying the we never make mistakes.”
“Interesting article about Arar, though. The only thing I don’t understand is that if we sent him to Syria specifically to be tortured, what information to we gain from it? It was always my understanding that the point of torture was to get information out of someone. Did that happen? It appears not.”
That second quote is interesting. It seems to suggest – and perhaps I’m reading it wrong – that we simply couldn’t have ended up shipping off an innocent man to be tortured in Syria, and since even a year of torture in Syrian prisons couldn’t get info out of him, the whole thing must be nonsense or misleading . . .
(Granted, we can’t, I think, absolutely rule out an alternative possibility, which is that we (and Canada) didn’t do this on purpose, but merely out of enormous incompetence and ignorance. (As opposed to the gross incompetence of intentionally sending someone to Syria to get tortured for info, except that they happened to be innocent) . But you know, that doesn’t exactly strengthen the case for gov’t being able to snatch people off the street and torture them in secret prisons either . . .)
“t was always my understanding that the point of torture was to get information out of someone”
That’s one purpose. It’s not the only one, and often it’s – at least functionally – not the main one. Torture can also serve (additionally, or instead) as an instrument of political oppression, retribution, etc. – in a sense, as a form of state terrorism – as well as a number of other things, a few of which have to do a lot more with psychology than security.
I need to go to sleep. GWR, – well, I was going to try to stay awake long enough to reply to your comment, but reading it through I realized that it was really a brilliant parody in the style of Stephen Colbert, and I need only admire it.
Well, no. But I will try to respond tomorrow. Or, I guess, today. *Yawn*.
No time to really respond right now – sometime tonight. One or two quick points:
“ You’re from New York…have you petitioned the governor to send a NY State Trooper over to Waziristan with an arrest warrant and ask bin Laden to come along peacefully?”
Uh-huh. ‘Cause that’s what I – or anyone else – is advocating. Yep.
“So let’s now talk about the Clinton administration.”
Do I have to? Like a ton of other folks on or near the left, wasn’t much of a fan. You should look at old issues of the Nation. Not nearly as bad as the current occupant, ok, but . . .
The Waco disaster was a disaster. Complete bungle of a very risky situation. But it was just that – a disaster, a bungle, not an overarching policy. (Although I don’t think there was sufficient accountability).
The two paragraphs starting “And there, in one sentence, is a very basic difference between conservatives and leftists.” (and much of the previous few paragraphs – also, you’re forgetting liberals again. Unless you intend your comments not to apply, in which case you shouldn’t use liberal examples.)
Where do I start? Since I’m in a hurry, I’ll just quote my earlier comments: “People often do attribute these sorts of schemingly deceitful motives to despised outgroups, while their own group is acting in pure good faith, selflessly motivated by high &serious concerns and careful consideration.)”
And how do you manage it, being surrounded by such amoral, power-hungry traitors? It must suck to hate or despise so many of your neighbors . . .
“One Chris Satullo, that’s who. I checked the archives.”
You could help me out then, since his Inky columnist page only goes back a year or two, while the $ archives don’t seem to turn up Satullo stuff before 2000. What am I missing? – Although apparently he did, back in the late 90s, call for Clinton to resign . . .
“You want to know why we find the likes of Satullo far off to the left?”
I don’t know, ’cause it doesn’t seem to have all that much to do with actual policies supported, esp. on any standard left/right axis . . .
Ok, have to run. Because I hate my country, don’cha know . . .
I’m confused Dan. First you say it’s not clear if it saved lives, but then in YOUR link the interrogator says:
So which is it? Just so we set the record straight here, preventing attacks means SAVING LIVES. Usually when the bad guys attack something they kill people.
Actually no, it was red tape and bureaucracy. The kind you normally get with any major LAW ENFORCEMENT investigation:
Legal problems, Dan. That’s what you get when you treat terrorism as a legal problem rather than a national security one.
Riiiiiiight. You see how berserk the Bush critics went when we invaded Iraq, a country with a leader who slaughtered hundreds of thousands of his own people, supported terrorism, and gave the finger to the UN every time he could over his WMD program. I can only imagine what would have happened had Bush dropped bombs on an unheard of Osama Bin Laden in a foreign country less than 8 months after taking over. They would have been screaming “impeachment” before the smoke cleared. So don’t hand me that “if only Bush had done more” crap. Clinton had YEARS, of not only warnings, but actual attacks that killed Americans, and he did nothing because he was worried about his all too important poll numbers.
Not at all. What I’m suggesting is that why would the Syrians agree to take someone, torture them, and then turn over the information they get to the United States? It makes NO sense at all. Sorry to be the one to tell you, but Syria is the bad guy, they don’t want to help the good guys, get it?
Innocent? Apparently you failed to read the laundry list of things Arar has been involved with. Try actually reading the links I post, Dan, it will help tremendously.
Spare me. As if any of your sarcastic humor is any less insulting.
Without nothing new to contribute, Dan shoots himself in the foot once again:
Sarcasm noted. OK, let’s see…you don’t want the military handling terrorism, and you’re not going to have the police agencies do it…who then? Do you honestly think that maybe playing a tape of Obama reading an endless succession of “hope” and “change” non-sequiturs off his teleprompter will end islamic radicalism? It won’t – they’re made of sterner stuff than, say, Chris Matthews, ya know.
Once again, NC Cop’s pointed out the flaw in your stance. It would have helped if during the previous administration the security agencies hadn’t been actively prohibited from sharing anti-terrorist information (Gorelick’s famous ‘wall’) for transparently political reasons.
Wrong again. I deliberately use “leftist” because the term is more accurate. The classical liberal was in favor of more freedoms in both the political and economic arenas. That doesn’t describe the left today. They’ve bastardized the term. It’s why I also won’t use their current euphemism of choice: “progressive”. There’s nothing progressive about the left today.
Funny you should mention that publication. If a conservative were to dream up his most side-splittingly funny parody of a left-wing magazine, you wouldn’t be able to tell it from the Nation. Inside story: the daughter of some friends of mine has worked there. While in college she once called her mother and asked her to find some good reference books on the Cuban revolution and current system. The most important part of the request was that the references had to be pro-Castro or she didn’t want them. That’s the criteria for working there. By the way, Dan, did you forget to wax indignant before because I deigned to call Castro an America hater? You’re slipping, my boy…
I’m no psychiatrist, but I think the technical term for what you’re doing here is “projection”. I have no hate for the left. You’re politically misguided, intellectually bankrupt, and economically unfit to run so much as a lemonade stand, but I don’t hate you. But it is one of your heros, Howard Dean, who openly states that he hates Republicans. Hate is the province of the left today. Go to your left-wing web sites and observe. Jesse Helms has passed away? Hate and glee erupt. Tony Snow is ill? Read the hate and watch the digital high-fives among the rest of their electronic sewage. But when Ted Kennedy was diagnosed, you didn’t find a like reaction here or at any other mainstream conservative site. Hate is your side’s monopoly, Dan.
And once again we come back to ST’s original point – leftists who hate America because it isn’t run by THEM, in a way THEY want.
Unless Dan shocks us with some actual substance in his next missive, I’m finished with him here.
“I’m confused Dan. First you say it’s not clear if it saved lives, but then in YOUR link the interrogator says:
So which is it?”
I agree – it’s pretty confusing. “Probably helped prevent attacks doesn’t actually give us a firm answer – did it or didn’t it? If he thinks it did, what evidence is he basing this on? Etc. I can’t say with any certainty that it didn’t, to be sure, but . . . .
“You see how berserk the Bush critics went when we invaded Iraq,”
{shrug} you say tomato, I say unprovoked rush to war with the wrong country over WMD fantasies & highly misleading rhetoric intended to falsely connect Saddam, AQ, and 9/11 and terrify the American public, all without bothering to make postwar plans beyond ‘catch flowers, eat candy, enjoy applause, go home’. But I’m willing to step back from the online-arguments-over-Iraq precipice if you are . . .
Although I have to say, if it was a war largely over oil, as Greenspan has claimed, we sure screwed that one up.
“ I can only imagine what would have happened had Bush dropped bombs on an unheard of Osama Bin Laden in a foreign country less than 8 months after taking over. They would have been screaming “impeachment” before the smoke cleared. ”
Wait, I thought conservatives were supposed to value what was good for the country over selfish political gain? Now I’m confused!
And anyway, seriously now – if Bush had taken out bin Laden in summer ‘01, the vast majority of people would’ve gone either “huh? bin who?” or “yay!”. Oh, and about 10 folks would have been standing somewhere waving signs and yelling about Bush being an evil imperialist capitalist warmonger. So?
“ Clinton had YEARS, of not only warnings, but actual attacks that killed Americans, and he did nothing because he was worried about his all too important poll numbers.”
Well, I think it goes without saying that he certainly didn’t do enough. But to say he “did nothing” seems to forget stuff like this:
“August 20, 1998 WASHINGTON (CNN) — Saying “there will be no sanctuary for terrorists,” President Clinton on Thursday said the U.S. strikes against terrorist bases in Afghanistan and a facility in Sudan are part of “a long, ongoing struggle between freedom and fanaticism.” . . . The president said he ordered the strike against bin Laden and his compatriots because of “compelling information they were planning additional terrorist attacks against our citizens and others with the inevitable collateral casualties and .. seeking to acquire chemical weapons and other dangerous weapons.”
Sure, he dropped the ball, but damn, at least he was trying to catch it, as opposed to just standing dazedly in the outfield, looking around aimlessly . . .
“Not at all.
Sorry ’bout that, I misunderstood. That’s what I get for commenting instead of sleeping . . . .
“What I’m suggesting is that why would the Syrians agree to take someone, torture them, and then turn over the information they get to the United States? It makes NO sense at all. Sorry to be the one to tell you, but Syria is the bad guy, they don’t want to help the good guys, get it?”
See, the problem here is that you’re going by the simplistic saturday-morning-cartoons good guy/bad guy model of international relations. I’m certainly not saying that Syria isn’t a fairly nasty dictatorship, much less our good friend (not that the two are mutually exclusive, unfortunately) – but we’ve had somewhat of a common enemy in bin Laden and al Qaeda – after all, Syria’s run by the secular Ba’ath party (the Syrian version, that is). Indeed, it would seem that Syria did supply some (limited) help in fighting Al Qaeda after 9/11 (see for example here, under “Syria’s Record, Post-September 11“) – although of course they are big supporters of certain other terrorist groups.
“Innocent? Apparently you failed to read the laundry list of things Arar has been involved with. ”
Some person on Yahoo Answers said that “When it comes to the figurative sense of the term, “laundry list” usually describes a long, hastily assembled or disorganized, and seemingly random list of items..” It certinly does sound like a lot of claims being thrown around that don’t really seem to go anywhere or rest on much. Both Canada and Syria apparently feel there isn’t any evidence of Arar having any links to terrorism (at least going by – hangs head in shame – wikipedia, caveat lector, etc.).
Did read it, though.
Ahhhhh the sound of defeat!!! Since Dan S. is an expert in interrogation techniques I am certain he would give us a more definitive answer, but he’s not so he gives us this have it both ways answer to CYA himself. Good one Dan S.
You’ll believe in Global warming on the say so of an idiot that is making huge profits off of it, but you question anyone else ad nauseum. Thanks for you answers Dan S. Next contestant please. – Lorica
“o you honestly think that maybe playing a tape of Obama reading an endless succession of “hope” and “change” non-sequiturs off his teleprompter will end islamic radicalism?”
Ha! (I also like the bit about how radical Islamists end up looking better than Chris Matthews . . .). Raises an interesting question, though – let’s say you were captured, imprisoned in a small room, and kept almost constantly awake by recordings of Obama speeches blaring at full volume, day after day after day after . . . would that count as a kind of torture?
. . . Now that’s change you can believe in . . .
(Personally, I’d distinguish that from waterboarding, stress positions, etc . . . )
Anyway – I’m assuming you’re being sarcastic, but just in case you really don’t understand, it’s not that I’m depending on the Schwenksville Police Department to arrest bin Laden (or perhaps not even them). It’s that you can’t deal with terrorism (at least in the current instance) simply by, say, invading Iraq. (And you can joke about NY State Troopers waving an arrest warrant at bin Laden, but we sent the U.S. military to get him (among many other things), and as far as we know that hasn’t worked either, yet. (Of course, that’s obviously a really grotesque & unfair oversimplification, and you’ll probably decide I’m smearing the troops. Jeez . . . )
Instead, it’s going to require a wide range of effective tactics, many of which are going to be the kind of thing you do to fight the mafia or drug cartels – not relying on random state troopers but everything up to national law enforcement agencies, and constant international cooperation. For example, I’m thinking of the Bush administration’s (entirely proper) work in shutting down terrorist financing. Then there’s the incredibly important effort of showing people that we’re their friend (or at least not their enemy), and that they don’t want to support anti-American terrorists, much less join them. A lot of our recent conduct has really undermined that (what would you do if foreign forces, having invaded the U.S. to overthrow some horrible near-future dictator, proceeded to detain your son/father/brother in a random sweep, so that he disappears for weeks or months, until he’s finally released with stories of being abused in twisted and degrading ways, or is never released, or you’re informed, eventually, of his death in custody . . . .?). And it’s not either a national security or law enforcement thing – obviously, we need both. In some cases, military operations – small, like bombing a terrorist camp – or perhaps even large ones – will surely be necessary.
But I’m an evil America-hater, so what do I know?
“Once again, NC Cop’s pointed out the flaw in your stance.”
‘Condoleezza Rice said it, so it must be true’ seems a little bit overtrusting to me. That’s probably just my crazy America-hatin’ coming out, though. Clearly we can blindly trust all our government officials – wait, but not the ones with (D)’s after their names? Man, I keep missing these memos . . . . And it’s not like Rice ever says things that aren’t totally accurate, like that nobody ever predicted that terrorists could use a plane as a weapon, etc. (And much less seriously, apparently Laura Bush has a sister-wife – but that’s getting kinda pettily unfair. Although personally, I think that would be hilarious.)
“. It would have helped if during the previous administration the security agencies hadn’t been actively prohibited from sharing anti-terrorist information (Gorelick’s famous ‘wall’)”
The reality seems a lot more complicated – see for example here. I’m assuming you’re particularly likely to distrust that site, and that’s ok – hey, blindly trusting liberal organizations isn’t a good idea either – but it provides a) criticisms of that claim (in case you’re not yet familiar with them), and b) most importantly, links to documents and testimony and such, so you can judge whether the evidence supports their assertions, and evaluate how reliable it is.
“ for transparently political reasons.”
Eh? What would those be? I’m sure you’re not saying that the Gorelick “wall” memo was actually an attempt to protect Clinton from one or another imaginary or wildly-overblown scandal, but I can’t think what else you might be getting at.
“Inside story: the daughter of some friends of mine has worked there. While in college . . .”
Y’know, not to impugn your friends’ honesty – it is true that often tales grow and change in the telling (at least it’s not from a ‘friend of a friend!’) and it’s easy to think of other explanations – with only the slightest variation – that might put this in a different light. But then again, it might be completely accurate, though I’m unsure why you want to tell us all that your friend’s daughter is/was ardently pro-Castro (hey, we all make mistakes in college – for example, it turns out it’s not necessarily the best idea to take most of a box of Vivarin within the space of an hour or two while washing each one down with cans of coke . . . ) nor why you think this anecdote reliably tells us anything about that publication (besides that they employed such a person). Anyway, the whole thing is completely irrelevant to the point I was making – which is instead of being evil monsters who put the pursuit of power above all else, and are utterly united in their attempt to destroy America, liberals and folks on the left do indeed criticize or oppose others on the ’same side’. People often feel that members of despised outgroups are relentlessly monolithic and unvaried, along with with being evil schemers acting only for selfish gain. This is why remarks (like yours) along these lines are so worrying – along with forest hunter’s joke about stomping out everyone they disagree with for the good of the country, such baby steps of dehumanization can form a fetid breeding ground for far more serious eliminationist sentiments.
“By the way, Dan, did you forget to wax indignant before because I deigned to call Castro an America hater?
Um, what? I mean, he is, y’know . . .
“I have no hate for the left. You’re [etc.] but I don’t hate you.”
Rat, you believe that we would happily – and knowingly – hurt America (including countless of our fellow-citizens) in an naked, all-consuming quest for political power. If you don’t hate us, even a little, you’re quite a tolerant fellow. What next, embracing Castro?
“ But it is one of your heros, Howard Dean, who openly states that he hates Republicans”
““That was a little out of context” Dean answered. “I don’t hate Republicans as individuals. But I hate what the Republicans are doing to this country. I really do.”
“ Tony Snow is ill? Read the hate and watch the digital high-fives among the rest of their electronic sewage. ”
Actually, I can’t remember any of the liberal/left bloggers I read reacting anything at all like that, although I’m sure there are some bloggers somewhere who said something nasty. Memory can be selective, but . . . (and compared to things you can find deep in the fever swamps of the far right, or even in the comments of major best-selling folks like Coulter – poisoning judges, wishing for terrorist attacks aimed at journalists she dislikes, etc. – not that this makes it any better, of course, just to address false claims of exclusivity).
“. But when Ted Kennedy was diagnosed, you didn’t find a like reaction here or at any other mainstream conservative site. ”
What, you want a gold star for being a decent human being? Well, ok. Good job! Good job! (and to be fair, that is an admirable thing. I mean, it shouldn’t be a claim one even has to make – look, ma, we didn’t celebrate when a politician we dislike got diagnosed with brain cancer! – but still . . .)
After all, Michael Savage isn’t a blogger. So he doesn’t count. (And to be fair, he was an exception. There really is something kinda wrong with that guy).
“ Jesse Helms has passed away? . . .”
Now here I have, unfortunately, to pretty much agree with you. Helms was a hateful & bigoted person who should have never been put in a position of power (so he would have caused less damage), but he was still a person, a comrade-in-arms in the battle every human being has with mortality. Blech.
It’s messed up that so many folks on the right were praising him, but a different kind of messed up, I’ll agree.
“And once again we come back to ST’s original point – leftists who hate America because it isn’t run by THEM, in a way THEY want.”
But I won’t agree with that, because it’s nonsense. As I’ve been saying – it’s my original and intended-to-be-only point, but I’m easily distracted – you’ve got this utterly, completely wrong. We don’t hate America. In fact, if you go back to the Satullo column, it’s kinda hard to imagine how anyone can misread it as such, at least without really trying. He’s not saying he hates America – indeed, the exact opposite: because he so cherishes what America stands for, and at it’s best, has been, he’s deeply, hurtfully ashamed at how we’re so horribly failing to live up to its standards, how we’re disgracing our own country and mocking our founding ideals. It’s not necessary to agree with this assessment to realize that there’s nothing in here of hating America – unless, I suppose, America is defined as ‘George Bush and the GOP.’ Satullo doesn’t even go ‘look what those horrible evil people have done to our country! Get them!’ – instead, he includes himself, liberals, lefties – we’ve pretty much all failed, he’s saying – we need to do better.
To again briefly address your argument from the earlier comment – two main problems with it (of many):
1) false equivalences. For example, a horribly screwed-up raid on a cult compound that was stocking up on heavy weaponry doesn’t actually equal a full-bore assault on our basic values.
2) inaccuracy (see again what I said about the tendency towards viewing those one dislikes, fears and/or hates as a monolithic mass): No Code Pink for Bosnia? Some of that was that our intervention to stop an ongoing ethnic cleansing doesn’t seem to have been strongly opposed by most Americans, while an ever-growing number of people opposed Bush’s war, even from the beginning, and for good reason. But that aside, there were folks on the left – unfortunately – who opposed our intervention there – Chomsky, for example, (certainly not a minor figure). And of course, I’m sure you remember what so many Republican politicians were saying [pdf] at the time, how steadfastly they supported the Commander in Chief . . .
What’s really depressing and disturbing is how you don’t seem to see your political enemies as fellow citizens – heck, fellow humans – who in most cases are at least partly motivated by sincere beliefs, good intentions, even misunderstandings . . . just as amoral/evil, scheming monsters who care only about gaining power. That’s kind of worrying.
“You’ll believe in Global warming because the vastly overwhelming majority of scientists doing relevant research say their work supports it, and to the extremely limited extent I’m able to follow that work, it certainly seems convincing.
It also seems significant that we’re not talking moldy old irrelevant dogma here – not all that long ago, global warming was just one possible hypothesis out of several, one that a lot of scientists viewed with genuine skepticism (as in, ‘well, show me the evidence, then’). What changed was that year by year, the growing body of research proved ever more – and finally, overwhelmingly – convincing (which is certainly not to say that there aren’t still many things we don’t understand, or that there is no possibility at all that we’re wrong – science doesn’t work like that – but if almost every single astronomer worldwide was saying that a (still distant) giant chunk o’ space rock was headed straight towards us at high speed, you wouldn’t bet on the chance that they were flat-out wrong because, hey, they can’t say it as a matter of philosophically absolute unquestionable Truth’, would you?)
No, it isn’t really. As I stated before, if you prevent attacks, which this information certainly did, you save lives. The terrorists don’t shoo all the people out of a target before attacking.
{shrug} You say:
I say, people who are so furious over losing the last two elections that they are perfectly willing to ignore all the intelligence, including from foreign countries and the U.N., as well as the fact that Iraq attacked 4 sovereign nations since 1980, and had nuclear ambitions. Not to mention make up stories about Bush “connecting” 9/11 to Iraq.
Ok
Except for the fact that the very next day, he changed his mind.
Greenspan Backtracks On Iraq War Oil Claim
Wonder why you didn’t see that story? That’s odd.
Indeed they do, unlike the dems. The difference is that Clinton actually had several chances to kill Bin Laden, and refused.
Michael Scheuer, the former head of the Bin Laden Unit of the CIA under Clinton had this to say:
Oh, I didn’t forget it. Those attacks have been largely written off as doing absolutely nothing to impact Al Qaeda and did in fact strengthen Osama Bin Laden’s reputation across the Muslim world. Not to mention the timing of the attacks certainly calls into question the motivation for them. The Monica Lewinsky scandal was beggining to break and Clinton needed a distraction.
Scheuer addressed that as well:
Sure sounds like Clinton wasn’t interested in getting Bin Laden.
I haven’t heard of any instances of Bush having Bin Laden in his sights and refusing to pull the trigger in his brief 8 months before 9/11.
I guess this is an excellent example of the difference between conservatives and liberals/democrats/progressives or whatever the popular term is today. We see that the U.S. is a good nation. We have liberated millions of people from brutal dictatorships and stopped the wholesale slaughter of innocents throughout our history. We are the first ones offering a helping hand when other nations suffer devastating natural disasters.
Read your link about Syria and although very interesting, it provided no proof that the torture of Arar produced any intelligence for the U.S. Not to mention many of the instance quoted in that article helped Syria more than anyone.
Good for the person from Yahoo Answers. Not sure what that has to do with anything, except for another disagreement about terminology.
After the next person gets a chance to respond to Dan’s latest round of arguments (I assume it will be NC, and/or GWR) I am closing this thread.
“No, it isn’t really. As I stated before, if you prevent attacks, which this information certainly did, you save lives.”
Ok – but it’s not all that clear to me that how much (or even if) the information elicited by torture contributed to preventing an (or multiple) attacks. Again, I can’t say with certainty that it didn’t, but . . . Heck, we don’t even know for sure if torture was necessary to obtain any such information – the FBI and CIA seems to have had some disputes over this. But anyway, as I’ve said before, I’m not arguing that torture cannot, in any circumstances, elicit information (although I think pro-torture advocates exaggerate its effectiveness and reliability – there’s a reason civilized nations, including the US, moved away from it over centuries). That doesn’t make it right, and that doesn’t make it something we should be doing.
“I say, people who are so furious over losing the last two elections”
Again, the constant denial the one’s political opponents could have any valid and reasonable objections, even if they happen to be mistaken. It’s just that they’re all driven by BDS. Hardly rational. Not even worth listening to. They might as well be making animal-like howling noises. That ‘they’ at this point constitute a significant chunk of Americans – so?
On Greenspan : “However, it is his view on the motive for the 2003 Iraq invasion that is likely to provoke the most controversy. “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil” he says. Maybe he really did just misspeak. Or not. Dunno.
“Not to mention make up stories about Bush “connecting” 9/11 to Iraq.”
That’s why I said misleading rhetoric instead of ‘Bush said Iraq caused 9/11′.
Clinton’s (failed) attempts to get bin Laden: ok, so we’ve gone from ‘Clinton did nothing’ to ‘ok, ok, Clinton went after him – with missiles, not just warrants – but they didn’t really hurt Al Qaeda, heck, they probably helped ‘em, and – Monica!! Monica!! Monicagate!! Double standard, too, one suspects.
To be fair, I kinda bought the ‘wag the dog’ scenario back then – as I’ve said, everybody makes mistakes in college. Of course, then I got up one morning and heard on the radio that a plane had crashed into the WTC . . . (granted, that’s not a strictly logical progression there, but still . . .)
Incidentally, while my memory isn’t the best, I’m pretty sure I didn’t come up with it on my own, but read folks putting it forward in . . . the Nation.
“Sure sounds like Clinton wasn’t interested in getting Bin Laden.”
See – it can’t be that a Democratic president was as least in part being over-cautious, too concerned about legality or America’s image or anything like that – he had to be a scheming, evil, deceitful thing.
“I haven’t heard of any instances of Bush having Bin Laden in his sights and refusing to pull the trigger in his brief 8 months before 9/11”
Yep. Because he didn’t bother, didn’t really seem to grant it much importance. (He did, to his credit, apparently ask if there was any threat to the nation, but apparently then he got distracted. I don’t think it’s cause he’s an evil little Bushitler, though – it’s just that he’s Bush, with all that entails. He must feel horrible about it though.
“I guess this is an excellent example of the difference between conservatives and liberals/democrats/progressives or whatever the popular term is today. We see that the U.S. is a good nation. ”
Well, I think it’s a bit more complicated, but what does this have to do with what I said? I’m just objecting to this cartoon view, where Syria is Bad and therefore in league with all the other Bad people and would never ever do anything to help us. Nations aren’t people, but they’re run by collections of people, and so can be kinda thought of as such – presumably you don’t divide the world into simply, completely Bad people (all identical) and simply, completely Good people, but realize it’s more complex, and that people have interests, and sometimes work together even if they’re very much not friends, and can sometimes be motivated by rational self-interest (and sometimes not).
“Read your link about Syria and although very interesting, it provided no proof that the torture of Arar produced any intelligence for the U.S. ”
Agreed. Everything I’ve heard seems to say they didn’t get anything out of him. (One of the reasons I tend to think he’s innocent -even at our worst in terms of torture, Syria’s still a lot worse. (Cold comfort indeed)). But . . . so? This seems to go back to the idea that we can’t make mistakes, and anyone we detain, torture, and then ship to Syria must have been an evil terrorist? (That’s one of the reasons for such protections as we’re defending – human error.)
“Not to mention many of the instance quoted in that article helped Syria more than anyone.”
Sounds about right. I wasn’t saying the Syrian government was a bunch of sweethearts who want to help us our of the goodness of their hearts – merely that they’re not simplistic cartoon villains. (Between the support for various terrorist groups and serious political repression and etc., they’re pretty nasty. But one of our very helpful allies in the GWOT apparently boiled some political opponents alive, so . . .{shrugs}
I’d say more about goodness and America and patriotism and such, but our host wants to bring this to an end, so I’ll just say that I’ll stick up on open thread over at my mostly abandoned blog in a bit just in case anybody wants to keep arguing.
No, I don’t know why you would either. But hey, just in case. It’s definitely been interesting, if insanely frustrating.
(Sister Toldjah – I can definitely understand if you don’t want to let this out of moderation, in the interests of brevity, but if so could you put up that invitation at the end? Although I suspect I’m just flatterin’ myself).
Anyway – all I wanted to say (and I do go on . . .) was that with very, very, very rare exceptions, we don’t hate America. Satullo doesn’t hate America. I don’t hate America. The random liberal or leftist down the street from you doesn’t hate America. It’s not just that many liberals do manage to be patriotic, as ST kindly says – it’s that the whole thing about “a not so insignificant number of far left self-haters like Chris Satullo just itching to find a reason to drag the country down to their level” is just a complete and utter misunderstanding, a fantasy. (The bit about Satullo being “far left” is so downright bizarre it’s virtually dreamlike). I’m not saying you can’t find any people like that anywhere, but they’re very small in number and very far from the liberal and leftwing mainstream; indeed, don’t have any sort of mainstream platform to speak from. It’s like when many folks on the right seemed to think that Chuchill idiot was some sort of big liberal leader, when pretty much nobody had ever heard of him (indeed, when that story broke, my first reaction honestly was ‘wait, wait, I thought they liked Churchill, but anyway, he’s dead – oh, some other fellow with that name. Hmm – well, he sounds like a [deleted].) Look at that column again – there’s nothing about being ashamed of our country – rather, being ashamed on behalf of our country, because, he says, we’re failing it, abandoning it. You might disagree, but that’s very far from ‘America sucks, , let’s go burn a flag, woo-hoo!’
So.
Ok, just to fix my html blooper, I was trying to say: my blog. Although why I’m botherin’, I dunno.
Oh – and I meant to say – please, please, don’t just automatically dismiss any and all (non-conservative) criticism of (Republican) government policy with cries of ‘America-haters!’ It runs the risk of helping let our leaders initiate or continue bad policies, policies which could, well, hurt our country. Seriously. From one American to another. Please.
Dan, you’ve said quite enough. I’m leaving the final word to GWR or NC and then I’m closing this thread.
That’s ok, ST, you can let Dan have the last word…I think he needs it more than I do.
Thanks, NC – I’m going to go ahead and close this thread. GWR, if you’d like me to re-open it so you can add a final comment to it, please email me and I’ll open it for you.