Comments on: Obama’s New Diplomacy: Good For Him, Not So Good For America

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:04:46 +0000

Jeffryw: I can only speculate. One possibility is that some of that intelligence resulted in leads that the FBI and CIA are still following up on. To reveal it would compromise some ongoing investigations.

BTW, notice that if I am right, then even Obama's liberal advisers believe that the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine does not apply to intelligence gathering. In a criminal investigation, if evidence is illegally obtained, then not only is that evidence inadmissible, but so is any evidence that stems from it.

Whereas in the hunt for al-Qaeda, Obama has not said that intelligence obtained through extreme measures will be discarded. That was the hidden message in all his verbiage about "looking forward, not behind."

By: Jeffryw

Jeffryw — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:52:44 +0000

General Question to all:

Why is it that Obama is more than willing to release for public consumption our tirture methods, but NOT do as Cheney suggests and declassify all memos concerning what intelligence was gleaned, what plots foiled, by the interrogation of high level Al Qaeda detainess in the wake of September 11.

And why would Cheney of all people suggest this if we did NOT get anything for our efforts of value enough that he is will to submit it to the sunlight of a hostile media's scrutiny??

Hmmmm

By: Jeffryw

Jeffryw — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:29:48 +0000

Ottobvs. Here's is how we view things differently. You talk about 3000 here 4300 there as a lot of people killed.

As if 9/11 was the worst that could happen. (And of course we lost 4300 Americans in one corfield at Antietam in three hours fighting but that is neither here nor there, just an interesting tid-bit).

I am talking about a potential attack that could wipe out hudreds of thousands in not millions. A bio attach. A small nuclear device (Iran anyone?). Or sabotaging an existing nuclear power plant.

You people think so small. Your (at least MY) enemies do not. They killed 3000 people on 9/11 because they could not kill 3,000,000.

By: mlindroo

mlindroo — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:20:03 +0000

Jeffryw:

"....fools who think they can arrogantly project their vision of the world as they wish it were..."

(You mean, like, Iraq will become a pro-American democracy and we will be treated as liberators??)

"...self-deludud persons continue to make outlandish claims with absolutely no concrete sourcing to back them up... "

(Like, Cheney stubbornly insisting that Saddam had WMDs for years and years after the invasion??)

"...Torturing a man because he will not talk under conventional questioning and yet time is running out as he may know crucial intelligence to thwart another 9/11 is perfectly acceptable..."

Thanks for using the T word rather than the usual newspeak term ["enhanced interrogation techniques"]. Perhaps you'd care to comment on the recent news that Cheney and Rumsfeld were leaning hard to the interrogators to come up with evidence of an Al Qaeda-Saddam connection to justify the invasion.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/66622.html

Look, I accept the claim that everybody involved (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice etc.) was motivated by the noblest of concerns for the nation's safety. But this does not change the basic fact, which is that some absolutely horrible errors of judgment have been made in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and in general in Iraq. And the biggest error of all has been to shoot/attack first without properly investigating the facts and likely consequences. It is a widely known fact that prior to 9/11, the Bush Administration was not particularly interested in transnational terrorist organizations. The big overriding obsession was "rogue states" such as Iraq, so this is was Cheney & co. automatically assumed had to be addressed.

MARCU$

By: Jeffryw

Jeffryw — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:19:16 +0000

By: Jeffryw

Jeffryw — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:58:20 +0000

Krove. I get angry when fools who think they can arrogantly project their vision of the world as they wish it were onto those who will turn that very naivete against us to do us harm have power over my country and indirectly my life.I also get angry when self-deludud persons continue to make outlandish claims with absolutely no concrete sourcing to back them up but you already know that don’t you?

By: Jeffryw

Jeffryw — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:55:24 +0000

Sinz54. That is overly simplistic and a poor comparison.

Torture for torture's sake ala Saddam getting his jollies out of punishing political oppoenents and striking fear into the hearts of his subjected peoples is one thing. It's called sadism.

Torturing a man because he will not talk under conventional questioning and yet time is running out as he may know crucial intelligence to thwart another 9/11 is perfectly acceptable.

You equate torturing innocents with torturing guilty I guess. Liberal moral relativism.

Let me tell you something about the world. The USA must live in it. Not above it. What you see as a "strength" to wit: being a nice guy in the face of animals the world that wishes us harm views as weakness and, worse, opportunity.

You people in your comfy chairs, having ZERO intelligence knowledge other than what you read in the NY Times and the alphabet news channels have no clue what is at stake. And arm chair pacifists like yourselves all puffy and self-congratulatory about how "moral" you are can do so because others were willing to do what it took to keep you safe not against innocents (which always gets lose here) but against vermine who wouldl decapitate your little kids with glee if given the chance and praise "Allahu Akhbar!" while they do it.

Wake up. The world is an uglay place and a personality cult like Obama cannot change that.

It will take another major terrorsit event to make you see that...for a while at least.

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:30:20 +0000

Jeffryw sez: "The rule of law doesn't apply to scum terrorists bent on killing you and everyone you care about. "

So as far as you are concerned, there are no limits to what America can do to high-value detainees like K.L.M.? Thumbscrews? Electrodes attached to the genitals? Rape of female prisoners, just as Saddam used to order?

I always suspected that the argument "Oh, well, waterboarding isn't really torture" is a red herring. Let's talk about REAL torture, the type I just described. Is that OK also, as far as you're concerned?

By: ottovbvs

ottovbvs — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:12:55 +0000

Jeffryw
wrote 48 minutes ago
"Your people's naivete and arrogance at the same time is going to get a lot of decent people in this country wasted my man."

.......Unfortunately, unless you'd noticed the naivete and ignorance of people who think like you has already got a lot of decent people in the this country wasted my man. Starting with the 3000 killed on 9/11 and moving onto the roughly 4300 killed in Iraq. Trotting out all the old blame shifting formulas isn't going to cut it. I don't think Bush could probably have prevented 9/11 but he might have had he been paying more attention. The Osama determined to attack memo and the CYA comment are well documented as you well know.

By: Jeffryw

Jeffryw — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:07:16 +0000

I notice you still don't source ANY of the materials you proffer as fact just because, well, that's the faux reality you've constructed around yourself.

"He dismissed the warnings with the words "'You have covered your ass, now go away'"

Where is the source for this one K-Rover?? *crickets*

Look, you make many many claims and never once back them up with anything factual. And what you very often levy extremely serious accusations against real individuals...so who does the insulting?

It is not an insult to call an orange an orange. And it is not insulting to call a naive person naive. Nor an insult to call a person who fabricates tales a liar. Not unless he proves me otherwise. You have never done so.

What IS insulting is to make vicious claims against people, even going so far as putting quotations on the words you contruct out of you own head as theirs, and not provide any documentation.

It tells you live in a world of make-believe constructed not by the historical record but rather your own lefty loon predjudices, totally separet from reality, which border on manic visceral hatred of individuals no longer even in power.