Thanks for your insightful words. ‘It takes involvement. Democracy is a verb.’
I also appreciated the Paul Krugman article, Forgive and Forget?

The next few days and weeks will indicate what new direction our elected leaders want to take. The course correction will be too much for some, not enough for others. And those creating fear in there lives will definitely have the roughest ride. I never get tired of thanking the individuals who post here with such talent and clarity. Your grounded voice is among them.

In the event Mr. Turley cannot take time to suggest specific
action, here’s a quote and a list of action sites.

“Change can only happen when citizens stand together and take ownership over their government, their country, their communities and themselves. Our work does not end with a campaign, but rather
begins with a new President, a new government.”

Nancy, can find an list of orgs. To choose from at
http://neoalertz.blogspot.com/2005/07/progressive-activism-sites.html
This will link you to all kinds of orgs, among them:

Democracy for America.org
The peoples network.org
DNC.
ACT for Change
Common Cause ( holding power accountable)
John Conyers Blog
Democrats.com/unity

There is a lot you can do. I don’t have half the education
of most the contributors on this blog, but it takes more than
agreeing with a cause. It takes involvement. Democracy is a verb.
Trust your own abilities to fight for justice with your community
and do not rely on s ‘leader’ to guide you to action in an era where we have so much at our finger tips. We the PEOPLE. Don’t forget the
“me” in we. ( sorry, that *was* a bit new agey)

respectfully,

A. Karno

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080339/quotes

Forgive and Forget?

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: January 15, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/opinion/16krugman.html
( excerpt)

Now, it’s true that a serious investigation of Bush-era abuses would make Washington an uncomfortable place, both for those who abused power and those who acted as their enablers or apologists. And these people have a lot of friends. But the price of protecting their comfort would be high: If we whitewash the abuses of the past eight years, we’ll guarantee that they will happen again.

Meanwhile, about Mr. Obama: while it’s probably in his short-term political interests to forgive and forget, next week he’s going to swear to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” That’s not a conditional oath to be honored only when it’s convenient.

Nice post. It’s nice to see you follow Homer Simpson’s advice to Lisa after she built a perpetual motion machine. “We obey the laws of thermodynamics is this house, young lady!”

There are many good and valid points you raised in that post.

That reply to Allan was meaty, moral, and magnificent.

Bravo for your patient and succinct reply to Allen.
For the record, CCD,may I point out something about the
distorted “eye for an eye thing”? Before Hebrew,
the scrolls ( laws Torah et al) were written in
Aramaic. Then, the text was translated into Hebrew-
a fine point just simply to underscore the issue
of semantics, meaning and laws and language and body language.

More accurately the phrase is translated to mean:
” the value of an eye for the value of an eye.”

Meaning, if you inadvertently hit and kill one of my
milk cows with your Escalade, you must reimburse me
for the financial worth of my cow…so I may
buy another to replace it, or simply purchase
something useful for the farm…like Tivo.
But I may NOT kill your beloved Daisy, to get ‘even.’

Revenge and bombs were never in the subtext,
litigious activity maybe, but not justifiable murder.
There is no right and wrong, only choices.
I am ashamed that we made the inhuman choice.

In addition, in pure Christian -Judeo theology
it is a sin to rejoice in the misfortune
of our enemies. CCD, your writing got it
across beautifully.

A.

That first sentence was priceless! No End in Sight is a great documentary. Chalmers Johnson explained how the Taliban was created in the first place in his book, Blowback. Very important reading.

Bear with me, I’m about to let you into one of the dark rooms in the back of my head. In 1998 after the Taliban Islamic fundamentalist attacked two embassies in East Africa (Kenya and Tanzania). President Clinton ordered cruise missile attacks on Taliban sites in Afghanistan. Based on U.S. intelligence, six locations were targeted.

I remember being in the Treasury bond pit at the CBOT reading the wire that our retaliatory attack against bin Laden failed to kill him. I remember thinking they missed the mother fucker, now they’re going to attack us back, I wonder how?

September 2001, came the answer, Al-Qaeda hijacks four commercial flights. Turning the aircrafts into missiles. (I don’t know how the Trade Towers collapsed, or building Seven. That’s a whole other matter.)

Allan my point is this; there is universal law which we are all taught. You reap what you sow. Whatever energy we put out, that’s what we get back. Simplistic but it can’t be any other way.

Professor Turley provides this magnificent forum. And the competencies of the people who post regularly are brilliant. Stellar actually, (no more lists.)

Calling you delusional for this statement (I guess you and your buddies feel that staying ignorant of potential future terrorist mass killings by following the letter of the law is preferable to using tough interrogation techniques and thereby saving lives.) is an ad hominem attack. Guilty as charged. But you’re old enough to know the universal law, so how can you logically say that?

The U.S. could have bought Iraq in a leveraged buyout the way West Germany did East Germany and it would have been cheaper! Watch the documentary ‘No End in Sight’ we’ve completely destroyed the Iraqis society. It’s truncated, decimated leveled, for what? And the human cost to the people that serve in our military is incalculable.

When you request, please base your replies on US law, not World Court or International Red Cross rules or Geneva Convention (which does not apply to these terrorists). You’re missing the perspective that these terrorists are human, torturing humans is immoral and finally torture is a fear based reality that brings humanity down collectively.

Allen you knew at some level that water boarding was torture. Now we know you know, because you said so. Writing is damn maddening, verbal communication is 40% body language.
There is no right or wrong only choices that lead to more choices. This country needs leadership committed to evolving beyond an eye for an eye, a bomb for a bomb.

Sorry for the stern treatment but you should know that wars of ideas and beliefs have real consequences and invoke real passions. Thus the reason for the bluntness in getting your attention. It is not demeaning to the advocate to point out logical flaws or patently silly arguments. This is the essence of the Socratic method that has served Western civilization well for centuries. Mealy-mouthed defenses or assertions interest no one, and you will not find that here. As my Con Law Professor used to say, sharp minds are only caused by friction, and that’s not an entirely bad thing. A sharp wit can sting but maybe you will agree that it produced some advancement of the knowledge of the other side’s point of view, and left you with at least one vivid mental image. I know it has done so for me.

a. The greatest recruitment tool for al qaeda and non-affiliated terrorists has been Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, This government’s actions have made us less safe, not more safe. It’s not payback, it’s blowback that the US has to worry about. While I’m glad the U.S. hasn’t been attacked on home “soil”, I do not find the deaths of our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan acceptable. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. This war was entered under false pretenses and our people, along with many Iraqi civilians have payed the price. Had we focused our attention in Afghanistan and not moved onto Iraq it is possible that we may have accomplished some good there. As is was/is we are woefully understaffed and underequipped to fight in that country. This leaves our soldiers more, not less vunerable. While soldiers may not be located on US soil, they are still American citizens and their life should mean something to us all. In short, the decisions of bush and cheney have exposed our people to great harm.

b. By violating our Constitution this administration has taken away many of the very liberties it claims to protect. They have violated seperation of powers and many of the rights that once were guaranteed to us as citizens by the Constitution. This is not keeping the populace safe. This is a naked grab for power by the executive over the people. No true conservative would approve of this idea. Our nation is a nation of laws. To torture is a war crime. If we will not hold our leaders accountable when they break the law, we cease to be a nation of laws. We enter into a dictatorship, where the executive chooses which laws he will obey and which he will discard. No true conservative would contenance this idea.

I still think it is a mistake to try to prosecute a president who sincerely tried, and largely succeeded, to provide defense against some very, very nasty enemies. This can only have a deterrent effect on future presidents who may hesitate to provide effective protection due to the possible consequences from the protected classes.

After all, what is the payback for this course of action? Better PR with European elites? Better press from our sunshine “allies”? Ideological purity for academics? These theoretical results cannot compare to a terrorist attack on our soil.

Finally, I point out that many of the criticisms of left wing bloogers that I hear from the right wing blogs have been proven to be true through my very short sojourn on your blog: the left bloggers attack the writer with obscene and unwarranted name-calling, adding nothing to their persuasiveness. And, no, I will not pee on your leg for fear of being accused of water torture.

Duly noted.

The neo-cons define scholarly disagreement as finding one would-be felon with a college degree who can put together two sentences of English which attempt to convince the rest of us that what we clearly see before our eyes is false. When I was a kid we called these people carnys with their shell games –or con men selling “money making” machines.” Now we call them the Cabinet.

I love the way you approach waterboarding as if it were some modern and novel form of torture of which we knew nothing before 9/11. I have no doubt that the “know-nothings” of the Bush Administration knew very little about history before taking office. However, the rest of us do read and have lived outside of the elitist or evangelical bubbles that crippled this latest version of the “Republicans who couldn’t shoot straight.”

Waterboarding has been regarded as torture since the 14th Century (tormenta de toca) and, in our country, since at least the Spanish American War (In re: Courts Martial of Major Edwin Glenn), and we have prosecuted Japanese soldiers for this practice during WW2 (e.g. U.S. v. Yukio Asano-15 years hard labor). To pretend there is some debate over this point aligns you squarely with the sophists even now are trying to keep the Bush/Cheney mob out of prison. Like most smokescreens this one will blow away, but I fear not before deluding impressionable and “useful idiots” like yourself. As a famous person once said, “quit peeing on my leg and trying to convince me its raining,” or, as in your case, trying to convince me that peeing is some new revelation to mankind.

If I’m not mistaken, I think I warned you about this more than half a year ago.

Like I said, the only way to hold the Bush Administration accountable will probably be through state law and the the extent a state constitution sets a higher ceiling than the fed constitution.

——–

If it happens, the credit for this belongs to JT.
Jonathan Turley, “From Pillar to Post”: The Prosecution of American Presidents, 37 American Criminal Law Review 1049, 1064-66 (2000)

What does Cuomo’s office say?

This from the ‘citizen voter’ who didn’t even know if she was properly registered right up until the day of the most important election of the century, much less if her votes were counted during the last two, but who supported Cynthia McKinney as her President
- despite McKinney being considered, by many from her own district, one outburst short of being fitted for a straightjacket.

Obama was not my first choice, but I don’t regret voting for him over McCain. Although he will be missed in the Senate, I’m delighted Joe Biden will be ex officio President of the Senate. He’s bound to get an earful and listen, unless I miss my guess.

mespo, the NYT article is the same one Buddha posted. I pasted one of the encouraging parts from it. And I agree with Michael S. and the few others who posted here, as I’ve stated repeatedly to counter ‘the negativity factor’, I am prepared to wait until after the swearing in ceremony.

Along with JT, seeing Obama with his hand on the Bible, I’ll be saying a silent prayer for ‘Principle’. Without that, it don’ mean a thing…

In the meantime, lotsa noise, please, in your own States would be most helpful.

I absolutely agree that we are perilously close to facism, if not already there. Many people believe Obama is staying silent until he gets into power. That argument doesn’t hold water for me because these people could order whatever they like, whether they are in office or not. Remember, they are connected to the intelligence community and private contractors through and through. Holding office doesn’t really matter. In addition when I look at Obama’s voting record and other decisions I don’t see a rebel. I see a person who’s statements and appointments do not deviate from his past, often authoritarian decisions. I worry that people will keep giving Obama the benefit of the doubt when he doesn’t deserve it. We will fall all the way into fascism without a clear eyed understanding of our political “leaders” and this includes Obama. I just read the following from Glenn Greenwald. In case you didn’t already read it I excerpted some from his column.

“Politicians, by definition, respond to political pressure. Those who decide that it’s best to keep quiet and simply trust in the goodness and just nature of their leader are certain to have their political goals ignored. It’s always better — far better — for a politician to know that he’s being scrutinized closely and will be praised and supported only when his actions warrant that, and will be criticized and opposed when they don’t.

Right this moment, there are enormous pressures being exerted on Obama not to make significant changes in the areas of civil liberties, intelligence policy and foreign affairs. That pressure is being exerted by the intelligence community, by the permanent Pentagon structures, by status-quo-loving leaders of both political parties, by authority-worshipping Beltway “journalists” and pundits (such as the ones who wrote the wretched though illustrative “What Would Dick Do?” cover story for this week’s Newsweek).

If those who want fundamental reform in these areas adopt the view that they will not criticize Barack Obama because to do so is to “help Republicans,” or because he deserves more time, or because criticisms are unnecessary because we can trust in him to do the right thing, or because criticizing him is to “tear him down” or “create a circular firing squad” or “be a Naderite purist” or any of those other empty platitudes, then they are ceding the field to the very powerful factions who are going to fight vehemently against any changes. Do you think that those who want the CIA to retain “robust” interrogation powers and who want the federal surveillance state maintained, or want a hard-line towards Iran and a continuation of our Middle East policies, or who want to maintain corporate-lobbyist-domination of Washington, are sitting back saying: “it’s not right to pressure Obama too much right now; give him some time”?

It’s critical that Obama — and the rest of the political establishment — hear loud objections, not reverential silence, when he flirts with ideas like the ones he suggested on Sunday. This dynamic prevails with all political issues. Where political pressure comes only from one side, that is the side that wins — period.”

* * * * *

A CIA program to administer aggressive interrogations to top Al Qaeda leaders brought America more valuable information about planned terror plots than all of the government’s other intelligence gathering efforts, a former director of central intelligence, George Tenet, has declared.

Mr. Tenet said the program was needed to deal with threats that emerged after September 11, 2001, including reports that there might be nuclear bombs in New York.

“I know that this program has saved lives. I know we’ve disrupted plots,” Mr. Tenet said in a “60 Minutes” interview set to air Sunday before the release of his new book. “I know this program alone is worth more than the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us,” he said.

–Second, Condoleeza Rice testified that the use of waterboarding in 2002-2003 was legal and useful.

–Third, to mespo…you asked:
“Under what construction of language do you conclude that my case “rests on the threat of imminent death?””

It is clear from the definition of “mental pain or suffering”, (which you conveniently failed to cite). Go back and read the definition and you will see my point. None of the other examples of pain and suffering fit the case.

I point out that “mental pain and suffering” means something quite different to a law scholar who has grown up in a genteel society under the protection of the armed forces of the US than it does to a terrorist or a war-fighter in the field. It’s probably mental pain and suffering to such a legal scholar to miss the latest episode of SNL.

–Fourth, is it valid legal argument to revert to ad hominem attacks, such as calling me a “troll”, accusing me of relying on “fattening alcoholic beverages” or being “delusional”?

–Fifth, I would not and am not trying to justify the Abu Graib disaster, nor the techniques used there. I doubt that these techniques will be traceable to the President for war crimes, however. Some of these techniques were undoubtedly torture, as they physically maimed and psychologically destroyed some prisoners.

“So we need your help again to continue our efforts to persuade President-elect Obama to appoint a Special Prosecutor. Please vote for our question again at a great independent website called change.org (not Obama’s change.gov):
http://tinyurl.com/5ohjyl

You can also vote for 9 other questions. We hope you’ll also vote for “Get FISA Right, repeal the PATRIOT Act, and restore our civil liberties.”
http://tinyurl.com/8ovtnt

Voting closes Thursday at 5 pm and the the top 10 finishers will be announced at the National Press Club on Friday – so please vote today.

Thanks all for your articulate insights and willingness to
think rather than just reacting.

A Karno

“Let’s wait to see what Obama really does when he takes office.”
—————————————————————-

I disagree with you on this point. I have never believed that Obama was other than a center right extremely savvy politican. You know that I have expressed worries about him many times before on this blog. One of my main concerns has always been that Obama seems to have followers, not citizen voters. I thinking having followers is dangerous. It inflates the ego of the “leader” and keeps people from thinking about what the “leader” is actually saying and doing. The main stream press has done very little questioning of Obama. Mostly they have been his insipid cheerleaders. They seem completely in accord with him on prosecution for war crimes, and most of his cabinet picks. (Mike, I could be really off on that because I don’t have a lot of contact with MSM but when I have, this seems to be the case.)

In my mind, Obama has benefited from good hearted but desperate followers who do not want to question what he is actually doing, because they want him to be a certain way. They want him to make things right again, and to question him would expose this belief to doubt.

Two days ago Obama renounced the NIE on Iran and said they have a nuclear weapon. I want to know why he believes this and what this belief portends. I want Obama to get the message that “we the people” are looking over his shoulder, and he needs to do the right thing. He has shown some very poor judgement in votes and appointments. Citizens should question their president, making their own thoughts and demands known, not in the future, but right now.

Thanks. I caught that also, along with his use of several false analogies. He basically brought out the big book of specious argumentation, and you’re right, JT handled every one of them!

seamus,

I’m sensing anger from you. Usually you’re so reticent in speaking your mind. Some would even call you a wallflower!

Very insightful commentary on advocacy. You did omit one glaring debater’s trick employed by the ex-Solicitor General: the “wait a minute I didn’t follow what meant by that” gambit. Fried tried that twice and JT handled it very nicely by saying, without a hint of chiding, “that’s what I am explaining right now.”

Somebody needs to throw the God damned book at these Saudi-loving, torture-loving, fake-Christian, closeted-homo (not that there’s anything wrong with that), corporate wellfare-loving, ass-weasels.

Let’s prey that some crazy French bastard engages in some extraordinary rendition and brings the lot to face charges in the Hauge. We’re sure as Hell not going to do iot here.

Your having this blog is good for many reasons but one of them really shined in your debate with Mr. Fried. It was obvious that he had never really confronted people, in a deep and repectful manner, who disagreed with him. One of the things I value on this blog is the chance to read the reasoned opinions of people who feel very differently from how I do about a topic. We have superb writers/thinkers on this blog, and many of them don’t agree with you on this topic. Because you are a person who actually considers what others have to say, it makes your own arguments stronger and authentic. He tried every cheap debating tactic in the book, red herrings, straw men, personal attacks– you handeled them all with aplomb. You totally smoked Fried!

That was a logic tour de force with a sprinkling of troll vernacular. Bravo.

1. Let’s wait to see what Obama really does when he takes office. All this pre-inaugural speculation and parsing of his words just falls into the MSM claptrap which is much ado about nothing until the inauguration. If he doesn’t followup with prosecution I’ll gladly and vociferously join the complaining chorus.

2. Prof. Turley kicked ass. As far as having Ivy League degrees George W. Bush has two, what does that prove? Your test as attorneys is your understanding of the law and your ability to articulate it. I have an Ivy League MS and having friends who went to city schools for their Masters I envied the interesting courses and teachers they had, compared to the well-published stiffs at my better reputed school.

3. To Allan and the Trolls who followed. We won, you lost. Your team is bad, our team is good. There, I’ve put it into the kind of phrasing you are capable of understanding. The shame is that life is more complex than rooting for a team and most of it is going on around you while you remain in your propaganda induced fog, drinking fattening alcoholic beverages and “rooting” devoid of knowledge. Sort of like saying “wasn’t that a great pass the guy made, without noticing the offensive line play, lack of defensive coverage and the perfection of the receiver’s route. Real fans and coaches listen with the announcers turned off so as not to be influenced by the blather, you ingest Limbaugh, Hannity and O’Reilly as if they knew what they were talking about.

I read the article you posted. Very disturbing, if true.

****************

Under what construction of language do you conclude that my case “rests on the threat of imminent death?”

YOU ARE DELUSIONAL! As referenced by this statement.

I guess you and your buddies feel that staying ignorant of potential future terrorist mass killings by following the letter of the law is preferable to using tough interrogation techniques and thereby saving lives.

Per the Air Force senior interrogator Matthew Alexander who was on the job in Iraq, torture does not work. There are better ways to get information, article here.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/28/AR2008112802242.html

Allen other than fear what motivates you?