That Is It, I Have Had it With Obama
… critics who think I am (or should be) pissed off because I don’t get to see more torture porn (which I can … Now with more blood!).
Follow this logic, please. If (as the right and now President Obama believe) releasing more torture porn pictures from abu-Ghraib will both demoralize our troops and inflame the muslm world — then the behavior the pictures document should not have been conducted.
Whatever you call it (I call it torture) it shouldn’t have been done. If releasing the pictures of the results of the Cheney Torture Regime will make us less safe, then the conduct of the CHENEY TORTURE REGIME MADE US LESS SAFE.
One thing these pictures prove, as did those released years ago combined with the Justice Department memos cataloging the hundreds of waterboarding incidents over a period of months, it that the “ticking time-bomb” scenario is utterly without merit. They are evidence that torture became official policy, not merely reserved for a few key al-Qeada operatives, but the default and preferred interrogation technique for captives.
It seems to have been established that despite what this and the previous administration infer, it was not an isolated incident by a few bad-actors but a pervasive torture regime established and maintained by several diferent departments (CIA, Defense and Justice) under direction of the highest administration officials that took place in Cuba where the institutionalized barbarism originated, exported Afghanistan where dozens of deaths via torture occured have not been investigated/prosecuted, and then ended up happening in Iraq where we have more deaths by torture and these pictures turn up.
Torture is bad. Any disagreement here? Anyone … Beuler?
For all the torture apologists like Liz Cheney and her father, suckit. Notwithstanding your defenses/excuses that what we did was:
- Not torture,
- Required under the extreme circumstances immediately post 9/11 where it was feared that another attack was imminent (despite it taking months of sleep deprivation and “softening up” detainees before employing the waterboard for another couple of months),
- Worked despite clear evidence that it did not.
All the chickenhawks seem to agree that it’s dangerous to release more torture porn pictures. That’s why allegedly free and open scocieties don’t engage in such activities.
The photos are bad because of what they show. We had no business doing what they show. If what we did was defensible, understandable, legal, then the die-hard neo-cons shouldn’t object to the world viewing these justifiable and ostensibly innocent acts. It just doesn’t pass the sniff-test.
Again I believe the President is playing 11th dimentional chess while the boobs on the right are playing checkers. He now has political cover when the courts decide (as they already have done) to release the inflamatory photos, yet he is not personally responsible for inflaming the world as the situation in Afghanistan and and Pakistan are about to turn ugly enough … and they are. He’s got enough trouble.
This decision to stall their release doesn’t undermine his promise of transparency. We know about the photos, we know what was authorized by whom, and we have courts and investigations proceeding whether or not we see more torture porn. If he tried to shut those down, then I’d have problems.
Yes, defying a court order to suppress evidence of conspiracy, torture and war crimes; smart 11th dimensional politics and “transparency” we can believe in.
[...] Cracking the Crystal Ball with 11th dimensional chess: These are my predictions of the likely outcomes of Solicitor General Elena Kagan’s Motion requesting a stay of the appellate court’s order releasing more torture pictures pending appeal to SCOTUS: [...]
[...] Cracking the Crystal Ball with 11th dimensional chess: These are my predictions of the likely outcomes of Solicitor General Elena Kagan’s Motion requesting a stay of the appellate court’s order releasing more torture pictures pending appeal to SCOTUS: [...]
Shep, shep, shep. Filing a Motion requesting a stay of a court’s order pending appeal is not exactly defying the court’s order. Besides, I’m pretty sure Obama/Holder (actually, Solicitor General Elena Kagan) know the likely outcomes:
1.) Stay denied, the pix get released per trial/appellate court order, not presidential fiat. WIN.
2.) Cert. denied, the pix again are released, this time because the Roberts SCOTUS was too cowardly to weigh in (and because there’s no new law to be made here — my best guess as to the future). WIN.
3.) Cert. Granted! The Conservative Roberts’ SCOTUS picks up the ball and either:
….a.) Sides w/Obama, making the right lose their minds, BIG WIN. or,
….b.) The Conservative darlings get Kennedy on their side to rule with Obama (and Bush) — and it’s THEIR fault we don’t see the already leaked pix — causing Scalia’s brain to explode, Glenn Beck to have an annurism, Limbaugh to fart himself to death, O’Reilly to gag during an auto-erotica session with Lou Dobbs’ Salvadorian cleaning lady, and Hannity to go through with his threat to have himself waterboarded which scares him to the point he apologizes to Alan Colmbs and turns his show over to him leaving FOX with no one to carry on but Gretta, Ms CA, and Sarah Palin – who soon get’s arrested for attempted manslaughter when she discovers Todd in bed with Gretta & Ms. CA. New programing in Wingerstan and an open conservative seat relinquished to the DFH’s in Obama’s White House. WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN, WIN.
I get it Mark.
a.) “[Roberts’ SCOTUS] Sides w/Obama, making the right lose their minds,” meaning Obama obstructs the court-ordered release of evidence for no good reason at all (I’ll bet all of my left shoes that US troops will still be in harm’s way when it happens).
or
b.) “The Conservative darlings get Kennedy on their side to rule with Obama (and Bush) — and it’s THEIR fault we don’t see the already leaked pix,” yeah, obstruction of war crimes evidence complete! I present to you tonight’s rogue’s gallery: Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
It’s a cover-up whether it succeeds or fails and (almost) everyone can see it for what it is. Here, this guy’s probably a lawyer, maybe you’ll take his word for it.
[...] you like this post, please subscribe to read more content on this topic.These are my predictions of the likely outcomes of Solicitor General Elena Kagan’s Motion requesting a stay of the [...]
Greenwald:
Gotta respect the respect for checks and balances. Obama “seizes power” if … and only if … the Congress and Courts both agree with the AG. Seems to me if all those folks are on the same page, that’s how the system is supposed to work.
I’m still a bit shell-shocked from the last 8 years of banana republicanism, but if you put it in perspective, it’s early. This time frame in the administration is about the same Clinton-time the term “Hillary Care” was coined, but no hearings had been held yet; Saddam hadn’t yet invaded and we hadn’t re-flagged Kuwaiti freighters, the Wall and the “No New Taxes” pledge were still intact in HW Bush-time; Ollie North hadn’t off-loaded his first arms shipment to the Contras and Ronnie hadn’t woken from his first nap in Reagan-time; and in Bush/Cheney-time, 9/11 hadn’t changed everything.
“I’m still a bit shell-shocked from the last 8 years of banana republicanism, but if you put it in perspective, it’s early.”
It’s not “early” when “…the Congress and Courts both agree with the AG,” that it’s legal to conceal/obstruct/destroy evidence of executive war crimes and expand the president’s ability to conceal conduct from the public, it’s really more of a continuation. In other words, this is (at least) our 9th year of banana republicanism.
Oh come on shep, this is a FOIA case by the ACLU, not a criminal/investigative proceeding. I love the ACLU, got their bumper-sticker on my briefcase, but it’s not the end of the world if they get to publish more pictures or not.
More pictures….more …. already leaked…stuff we already know about.
Some cover-up. If a criminal case or official investigation is hampered, that’s a different ball game, but that’s not the case here. This is about torture porn, not obstruction of justice.
I can not wait to watch the news and see all of you youngsters fighting amongst each other. It will be total chaos. Are you getting hungry yet?
The media is palying with your minds. Me too! Obama uses you, uses the unions, etc and has his advisors ready to play the real game. He is soon to shut down the banking system. Did you know he has that power? Then, he will us your armed forces to keep the H1N1 inside your homes.
Should get huge ratings on the tube. NBC has been waiting for this for a long time. I love to see blood. Lots of blood!!!!
Wow, I haven’t seen this big a bag of crazy here in a while.
Well, that turned out well. Torture[ed] porn indeed.
I was thinking the other day that if it weren’t for constant GOP obstructionism, like their utter abuse of the filibuster, POTUS, any POTUS, would have less of an incentive to seize more and more power — but that’s another topic … sort of.
Once upon a time POTUS, SCOTUS, Congress, and the Legislatures of less than 3/4th of the States weren’t up to the task of letting women vote … thought slave labor was a perfectly legitimate business model … or that a tax on income was unAmerican. Things change, some more quickly than others. Right now we’ve got the courts, congress, the President, the AG and SecDef in agreement when it comes to torture porn. That’ll change. Bank on it.
In the mean time, I don’t know if the potential harm/danger of releasing more torture porn outweighs their deterrent value in preventing more such abuses. I suspect it does, and the powers that be evidently, armed with more facts than we, are even more certain. I’m more concerned with the continuation of black-sites and the numerous detainees who won’t even get a military tribunal, let alone be tried in the Southern District of NY. I can be persuaded, however, that sometimes when you have to clean up someone else’s mess, you are bound to get some dirt on ya.
“I can be persuaded, however, that sometimes when you have to clean up someone else’s mess, you are bound to get some dirt on ya.”
Agreed. And that works just fine for inherited, unwinnable war and occupation. Deliberate, willful and completely discretionary abuse of executive power, for the purpose of concealing war crimes, not so much.
I don’t think crimes are being “concealed” since the nation’s top prosecutor has full access. The fact thay they’re not being prosecuted … yet … is troublesome. Politics being what it is, once healthcare is passed (in whatever watered down, hardly adequate state), and we get a jobs bill through, THEN if there’s no butts in the sling I’ll be pressed. I give it until next summer, or at least after the midterms, and if no progress towards accountability by then we start the “Obama is selling out to get reelected” chants.
Oh, and ponies and world peace, etc., I’d like that too by then. Karl Rove having an “accident” or his gay/transvestite/Trotskyite lover going “public” might do to keep me distracted enough not to care as well.
[If you're gonna dream, dream big. Come to think of it, Rumsfeld caught naked in bed ... with a pony ... ahhh, too much to ask, right?]
And here I was going to give you renditions and black sites.
.
Obama campaigned against this miserable shit (dreaming of ponies and world peace not required) not getting around to maybe doing something about it once health care legislation is passed by the Congress. And I’ll start with “Obama sold out liberals to get elected in the first place”, whenever I damned well please.