still pissed off

[solarbird]

Obama administration continues to blockade torture-murder investigations at Gitmo. Andrew Sullivan gives the obvious explanation why, and clings to what is to my mind totally unjustified hope:

The enormity of what might have happened - the torturing to death of an innocent 21 year-old, held captive since he was 16 and the removal of his organs - would recruit even more Jihadists than Cheney managed in his seven years of torturing and covering up... If you want to know how the government "lost" the last tape of the torturing of Jose Padilla, or why the CIA, with impunity, destroyed the tapes of their waterboarding, this reason remains... And someone somewhere in the military or CIA has told the Justice Department to stay away, just as they persuaded the president to withhold photographs proving that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were worldwide policy on Cheney's and Bush's orders.

Of course the CIA lied about torture, and the effectiveness thereof. Even within the CIA. This is what happens when you run torture states, particularly with complete opacity (tho' there's really never any other kind):

"What I told Brian Ross in late 2007 was wrong on a couple counts," [former CIA operative John Kiriakou] writes. "I suggested that Abu Zubaydah had lasted only thirty or thirty-five seconds during his waterboarding before he begged his interrogators to stop; after that, I said he opened up and gave the agency actionable intelligence. ... I relied on what I'd heard and read inside the agency at the time. ... In retrospect, it was a valuable lesson in how the CIA uses the fine arts of deception even among its own.

Obama administration adopts Bush administration position that it can order the assassination of anyone, anywhere. This is in addition to the pseudo-justice system it has set up with some real trials (where they're sure they can get convictions under ordinary rules), some fake "military tribunal" trials (where they're sure they can get convictions using torture-extracted 'evidence'), and some no trials at all (where they know they can't get convictions but want to keep someone locked up forever anyway):

Just think about this for a minute. Barack Obama, like George Bush before him, has claimed the authority to order American citizens murdered based solely on the unverified, uncharged, unchecked claim that they are associated with Terrorism and pose "a continuing and imminent threat to U.S. persons and interests." They're entitled to no charges, no trial, no ability to contest the accusations.

Impeach. Obama. Now, and bring Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney to trial.

Comments

[cow.livejournal.com]

I argue neither with the argument nor its conclusion, except on one thing:

How far down the order of succession do we have to go before we get someone who isn't already owned?

(Looking at the list tells me something I kind of knew, but hadn't thought about in these terms: we are five bullets away from President Geithner. That's...absolutely frightening.)

edited to fix a stupid typo

[solarbird]

How far down the order of succession do we have to go before we get someone who isn't already owned?
Even the most completely bought-and-sold politician will gain a sense of political preservation after the first couple go down.

Mind you, I'm beyond fully aware that this won't happen. Frankly, I think most Americans are just fine with torture regimes and arbitrary Chief Executive authority. It's a combination of disinterest, bloody-minded revenge lust, bullyism, and sheer cowardice. Of course, it's hard to be sure, since polling agencies aren't even surveying on this question. And even accounting for Rasmussen's GOP skew, it's clear that outright majorities of American support the use of legalised torture in some cases, and I wouldn't be very surprised if an outright if slim majority supported it routinely.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

We *should* impeach the lot of them.

Problem is, it's obvious now to the casual observer that the entire lot of them are pWn3d in some form or fashion, and Corporate America, the 0wn3rs, likes a war economy just fine, thanks. (Modulo the airlines... I never did understand that business, destroying the airline industry for the sake of security theatre fnord fnord... granted, the airline industry was old and crufty anyway and probably was due for a generational turnover, but still. Forcing the issue at the expense of civil liberties is NOT the way to do corporate eugenics. But I digress.) Unless we can somehow make the last clause of the First Amendment stick - something which has, to my knowledge, *never* been done - impeaching the bastard is completely, totally, and in all other ways, inconceivable. Unless you know something I don't.

Where the hell are Westley and Inigo when you need them.

[cow.livejournal.com]

You make a very fair point re: preservation; just the scramble where suddenly Obama seems to care about the deficit / etc. after the Massachusetts loss[*] shows that.

I...realize what you're saying is true re: torture and its supporters but I think this is one place where I just have to maintain my denial. LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU

[*] Note that I think the Senate battle was far more complicated than that--between Massachusetts having an independent and often contrarian streak, a dislike of one-party rule, a complete failure of a Democratic candidate, etc., and that this wasn't the single-issue vote that Mish and others seem to think it was. But it sure did wake up the Democratic power structure, at least for a couple of days, before we returned to *yawn* business as usual (http://themessthatgreenspanmade.blogspot.com/2010/01/todays-headlines-on-us-budget-deficit.html).

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

I think for the majority of Americans, which excludes the small wedge of civil libertarians and the larger but still small wedge of openly bloodthirsty pro-torturers, it's old-fashioned denial. American political culture is a civic religion that indoctrinates people throughout their lives to believe in American exceptionalism. It is impossible for us to do bad things, because we're Americans, so these bad things must not be happening.

When people say they favor torture in opinion polls, they're thinking of it in exceptionalist terms. It's all-American Jack Bauer's using it as a last resort to save lives. And as a last resort the possibility of mistakes or excesses is really low, right? Like the death penalty, which as we know is only applied after giving criminals every possible legal technicality to get off unless they really did do it.

And lest this all be chalked up to American values, has anyone done a survey of non-Americans on this lately? Certainly things like the death penalty are much more popular in opinion polls abroad than as a legal practice of governments. The UK imposed lots of limitations on civil liberties during the Troubles in Ireland. At the height of that if you polled torture as a technique to stop a ticking bomb scenario and save lives you'd probably have found a large number of supporters.

[partywhipple.livejournal.com]

A president, any president, would have to murder a large number of babies on nationwide television (maybe more than once) to ever have a chance of being brought to trial. And if he was brought up on charges the current president would pardon him. These guys are all in eachothers pockets. Their "democrats" and "republicans" distinction is about as real as Hulk Hogan's hatred of Andre the Giant.

[avram]

Or, y'know, get a blowjob from an intern.

[solarbird]

And lest this all be chalked up to American values, has anyone done a survey of non-Americans on this lately?
Yes. Greenwald had a column a few months ago; the US ranked quite high in the rankings of national populations supporting torture use.