Comments on: Obama’s Dangerous Abdication

By: Egli Ha

Egli Ha — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 13:08:22 +0000

So now Republican senators are threatening to filibuster President Obama's nominees.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Senate's "Gang of Fourteen" make a compromise on this? As I recall, the deal was: the minority will refrain from filibustering nominees, in exchange for which, the majority would refrain from the "nuclear option"--from changing the Senate's rules of debate to disallow filibusters. Republicans seem to think this compromise no longer applies now that they are the minority. OK, then, toss the compromise and let's bring out the nuclear option again.

My advice to Democrats would be: don't threaten, don't negotiate. Just introduce a motion to change the rules of debate (nuclear option), and vote on it before the Republicans realize what's happening. Then let them huff and puff until they burst.

By: ottovbvs

ottovbvs — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 10:33:51 +0000

"A. Wilson
8:08 PMIt all depends on one's definition of "torture". It seems that everyone has their own definition depending on their particular position on the Iraq/Afghan wars or President Bush."

.....Not really. Waterboarding is and always has been regarded as torture. But it didn't stop there. There were many other elements if you've read summaries of the Red Cross report including one that involved screwing people into little boxes which seems particularly heinous to me. As some posters have mentioned, there are stories circulating that the GOP is using some senate confirmations as bargaining counters to keep some of these torture memos secret. I've no idea whether these are true but if they are, they tell me two things. Firstly, the contents of these memos must be pretty bad and secondly GOP senators are losing their political savvy. Getting into a fight to try to keep torture memos secret doesn't seem a tactic that's likely to yield political benefits. At the end of the day all this arose because the president and his advisors essentiallly claimed he was above US and international law. This is so preposterous a claim I just don't see how anyone who calls himself a conservative can support it. Finally even the admin to some extent realized just how indefensible it was and backed away from part but not all of it. This as I mentioned below is going to be playing out for years.

By: krove

krove — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 09:20:52 +0000

The GOP way with transparency, NOT

Senate Republicans are now privately threatening to derail the confirmation of key Obama administration nominees for top legal positions by linking the votes to suppressing critical torture memos from the Bush era. A reliable Justice Department source advises me that Senate Republicans are planning to "go nuclear" over the nominations of Dawn Johnsen as chief of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice and Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh as State Department legal counsel if the torture documents are made public. The source says these threats are the principal reason for the Obama administrations abrupt pullback last week from a commitment to release some of the documents. A Republican Senate source confirms the strategy. It now appears that Republicans are seeking an Obama commitment to safeguard the Bush administrations darkest secrets in exchange for letting these nominations go forward.

By: Egli Ha

Egli Ha — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 04:35:44 +0000

I agree with David--the torture lawyers should not be tried by a Spanish court.

In fact, they should not be tried at all.

They should be killed WITHOUT trials.

By: A. Wilson

A. Wilson — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 00:08:30 +0000

It all depends on one's definition of "torture". It seems that everyone has their own definition depending on their particular position on the Iraq/Afghan wars or President Bush.

I don't think it's like we were routinely pulling out fingernails, or branding with hot irons. It seems that the supposed mother of all horrific techniques -- waterboarding -- was only performed on a handful of high-value potential information sources. And even that is not so much torture, as it is simply scary as hell. Our own troops train with it.

If we can't even step up our interrogation protocol a level for a group that just got through murdering what could very well have been tens of thousands of completely innocent Americans, a group that openly seeks to acquire tactics and weapons in order to kill as many of us as possible in the future, well then we've lost all semblance of common sense.

Seems now that we can't even advocate doing so, or risk being thrown to the worldly wolves.

I whole-heartedly agree with David Frum on this. Reasonable people can easily disagree with the methods used at Gitmo or wherever against an un-uniformed enemy that is closer to animal than human, and for the President of the United States to be so mushy and obtuse on this is not only enraging and embarrassing -- it's dangerous.

I'm just wondering if David is having any second thoughts since he wrote the paragraph below, especially given the perverted possibility that Obama's ramblings may have even encouraged foreign mushy malcontents to go after HIM next. Remember -- Axis of Evil??? How much murder and mayhem did THAT foment? Incalculable, according to the "World Court".

"Ms. Palin's experience in government makes Barack Obama look like George C. Marshall. She served two terms on the city council of Wasilla, Alaska, population 9,000. She served two terms as mayor. In November, 2006, she was elected governor of the state, a job she has held for a little more than 18 months. She has zero foreign policy experience, and no record on national security issues."

http://www.nationalpost.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=756704

I know one thing. Sarah Palin would have instinctively responded to these Spaniard weasels properly -- telling them swiftly and in no uncertain terms to butt the hell out of internal American affairs, thank you very much. And BTW, thanks for cutting and running in Iraq, you know, that former dictatorship turned democracy?

Now John McCain ..... unfortunately I don't have the same confidence in what his reaction would be.

By: nealjking

nealjking — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 21:25:01 +0000

petty: What international laws would the Spanish ministers have broken by inviting Castro to retire in Galatia? Or which US citizens would be harmed, and how?

sinz54:
- I think you may be over-estimating Cheney as a hero, even of Republicans, when his approval rating is about 11%. I think the closer equivalent would be "Darth Vader."
- "Post-partisanship" was always more a matter of tone & civility than a watering-down of policies. In any case, the GOP's idea of bi-partisan has always been "GOP way or the highway", so it doesn't work well when the GOP is the "little old party".

By: petty boozshwa

petty boozshwa — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 18:35:58 +0000

I recall that Spain has, in the past, offered Senor Fidel Castro a retirement home in Galatia if he would like to unburden himself of his heroic duties in Cuba. Surely if the Spanish government feels like evaluating our political process, there are probably some sympathetic judges in South Florida that would listen to a similar complaint against the various Spanish government ministers that have formulated their Cuba policy. Making travel to the US more difficult for their ministers would probably be more onerous than any cloud of warrents facing our officials in Europe. I recommend a legal foundation test the proposition.

By: krove

krove — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 17:26:00 +0000

I tuly hope this comes to pass.

On Thursday, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers quietly released the final draft of an extensive report he first unveiled in January documenting the Bush administrations "unreviewable war powers" and the possible crimes committed in implementing those policies.

In order to determine whether Bush officials broke laws, Conyers has recommended that Attorney General Eric Holder appoint a special prosecutor to launch a criminal inquiry to investigate, among other things, whether "enhanced interrogation techniques" used against alleged terrorist detainees violated international and federal laws against torture.

By: krove

krove — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 17:23:58 +0000

We have always known - or should have - that the UN Convention Against Torture (signed by Ronald Reagan) leaves NO EXCUSES for the use of use of torture. None.

No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political in stability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.M

By: krove

krove — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 17:22:34 +0000

WASHINGTON, Nov. 29 - The International Committee of the Red Cross has charged in confidential reports to the United States government that the American military has intentionally used psychological and sometimes physical coercion "tantamount to torture" on prisoners at Guantnamo Bay, Cuba.

The finding that the handling of prisoners detained and interrogated at Guantnamo amounted to torture came after a visit by a Red Cross inspection team that spent most of last June in Guantnamo.