Following the admission that the CIA hacked Senate computers and lied to Congress, President Obama today affirmed that it did indeed torture people. This admission (while belated) is an important recognition by the United States of what is obvious from a legal standpoint. However, that also means that CIA officials violated both federal and international law. The question is why Obama began his first term by promising CIA employees that they would not be tried for what he now describes as “tortur[ing] some folks.”
Despite the prior lying to Congress, Obama insisted that he had “full confidence in John Brennan.” As noted before, the Obama Administration is clearly unwilling again to discipline, let alone charged, any CIA personnel for hacking into congressional computers.
The President then turned to the Senate report on our torture program and affirmed his earlier 2009 statement that this was torture — plain and simple:
Even before I came into office, I was very clear that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we did some things that were wrong. We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values. I understand why it happened. I think it’s important when we look back to recall how afraid people were after the twin towers fell and the Pentagon had been hit and the plane in Pennsylvania had fallen and people did not know whether more attacks were imminent and there was enormous pressure on our law enforcement and our national security teams to try to deal with this. And, you know, it’s important for us not to feel too sanctimonious in retrospect about the tough job that those folks had. A lot of those folks were working hard under enormous pressure and are real patriots, but having said all that, we did some things that were wrong. And that’s what that report reflects.
Just a few points are warranted here.
First, torture is a war crime and the United States has insisted that it was at war. We have an obligation to investigate and prosecute any officials responsible for torture. Instead, both the Bush and Obama Administrations threatened countries like Spain and England for even investigating aspects of these crimes. Saying that we “tortured some folks” is not compliance with these law – either domestic or international
Second, it does not matter if we are “afraid” or angry under international law. These treaties clearly reject defenses like “just following orders” or justified torture.
Third, Obama has yet to explain his promise to the CIA employees after taking office. After his election, various high officials said that Obama told them privately that no Bush or CIA officials would be prosecuted. His staff denied the stories but he then soon thereafter told the CIA staff precisely that.
Finally, not only has the United States refused to hold our own officials to the same standards that we impose on other countries, but those responsible for our torture program are giving interviews and writing books in plain sight. In the meantime, the Administration has successfully blocked torture victims from seeking judicial review or relief in our courts.
That record makes the admission that “we tortured some folks” a bit less satisfying. No one familiar with the cases in this area should seriously doubt that we tortured people. What remains unclear is how we can justify not prosecuting those responsible. We may have “tortured some folks” but we never “prosecuted other folks.”
Source: ABC
Paul C. Schulte
Dredd – do you have a software program that makes up these attacks for you or are these all you?
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The one trick pony “he has one trick to last a lifetime but that is all he needs …”
Learn to reference the comment you are in reference to when you make a reply.
Unless, as usual, you only wish to be incoherent to everyone except yourself.
Paul C. Schulte
Dredd – do you have a software program that makes up these attacks for you or are these all you? I have been extremely straightforward. I told what the dictionary was and you found the wrong one. My problem with the dictionaries you are using is that they shorthand the meanings of a word. The nice thing about the OED, which is common knowledge to anyone who has done any real research which involves the meaning of words, is that you get the ‘Full Monty’ of the word. It is not a claim to intellectual superiority it is just more experience in the field.
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You are being intellectually dishonest again, by adding another diversion and another falsehood.
You have not provided a definition of “folks” in all your diarrhea of words that mean nothing.
Dredd – waiting for you to use a reputable source for your definition of ‘folk.’ And yet another ad hominem attack from you. I am going to have to make a macro just for you.
Paul C. Schulte
Dredd – one of your sources is at least 20 years old and the other is over 50 years old.
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Your incoherence requires me to reply to two possible (at least) things you could be saying.
If you are talking about the Army and CIA manuals (only you know) then my reply is that so what … it proves this information has been known for a long time.
Dredd – do you have a software program that makes up these attacks for you or are these all you? I have been extremely straightforward. I told what the dictionary was and you found the wrong one. My problem with the dictionaries you are using is that they shorthand the meanings of a word. The nice thing about the OED, which is common knowledge to anyone who has done any real research which involves the meaning of words, is that you get the ‘Full Monty’ of the word. It is not a claim to intellectual superiority it is just more experience in the field.
Paul C. Schulte
Dredd – one of your sources is at least 20 years old and the other is over 50 years old.
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False.
But even if so that would make them hundreds of years more recent than those you can’t present for shame.
Paul C. Schulte
ME: “We Tortured Some Folks” – Obama
Word Origin & History
folk
O.E. folc “common people, men, tribe, multitude,” from P.Gmc. *folkom (cf. O.Fris. folk, M.Du. volc, Ger. Volk “people”), from P.Gmc. *fulka-, perhaps originally “host of warriors;” cf. O.N. folk “people,” also “army, detachment;” and Lith. pulkas “crowd,” O.C.S. pluku “division of an army,” both believed to have been borrowed from P.Gmc. Some have attempted, without success, to link the word to Gk. plethos “multitude;” L. plebs “people, mob,” populus “people” or vulgus. Superseded in most senses by people.
folks
“people of one’s family,” 1715, colloquial, from plural of folk.
Volkswagen is the folks car.
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YOU: Dredd – I accept only the OED for word origins.
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ME: That is how narrow mindedness works, and it shows.
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YOU: Dredd – that is because the OED is the be all and end all when it comes to the meaning and source of words. Why should I, or you for that matter, accept second or third best?
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ME: Show me the “OED” (Old Extinct Definitions) definition and word history for folk/folks, and provide a link.
Or shut up and read (OED Unchanged – Old Extinct Definitions) to see how narrow minds devolve.
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YOU: Dredd – just for your ignorance, the OED is the Oxford English Dictionary, the Holy Grail of the meaning of words and how they change. You are pushing the envelope again.
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YOU: Dredd – one of the features of all dictionaries is that they are all at least one year out of date. The OED tells what the word originally meants, where it came from and gives you the sentences they found it in as the meaning changed. You can see the progress of the word. It is the difference between driving a Rolls Royce and a VW Bug.
Any definition that you are using is probably changing as we comment.
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YOU: Dredd – your ad hominem attacks are getting so common I am beginning to accept them as a standard part of your writing. That is what scares me.
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That “all dictionaries” includes your Holy Grail which is more out of date than the others because they don’t do “meanings now” they do “meanings then.”
Which is why you can’t give a coherent definition of “folks” that is better and more up to date than the one I gave.
Yet you insert a phomy notion of intellectual superiority because you know the name of a famous dictionary which you think will impress someone other than yourself.
What scares you is that your insecurity and intellectual dishonesty on this particular issue of “folks” is obvious and out in the open for all to see.
Well, one of them dates to 1987 and the other you stated was from 1963. How is that false. Another typical ad hominem attack.
Endeavor
… let me ask you this , do you have indisputable data to support that torture works ? …
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Army Field Manual 34-52 Chapter 1 says: “Experience indicates that the use of force is not necessary to gain the cooperation of sources for interrogation. Therefore, the use of force is a poor technique, as it yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear.”
The C.I.A.’s 1963 interrogation manual stated: “Intense pain is quite likely to produce false confessions, concocted as a means of escaping from distress. A time-consuming delay results, while investigation is conducted and the admissions are proven untrue. During this respite the interrogatee can pull himself together. He may even use the time to think up new, more complex ‘admissions’ that take still longer to disprove.“
Dredd – one of your sources is at least 20 years old and the other is over 50 years old.
Dredd – your ad hominem attacks are getting so common I am beginning to accept them as a standard part of your writing. That is what scares me.
Paul C. Schulte
Dredd – one of the features of all dictionaries is that they are all at least one year out of date. The OED tells what the word originally meants, where it came from and gives you the sentences they found it in as the meaning changed. You can see the progress of the word. It is the difference between driving a Rolls Royce and a VW Bug.
Any definition that you are using is probably changing as we comment.
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Which is like I say, a lousy canard and a BS diversion as used by you.
So what word scares you the most, “torture” defined as what your political idols illegally did, or “folks” which everyone knows they meaning of as used today?
Diversion of the type you practice is a sign of insecurity and intellectual dishonesty designed to cover up the insecurity.
“Explore the OED and oxforddictionaries.com entries for ‘car’ to see the differences:
‘car’ in the OED | ‘car’ on oxforddictionaries.com
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Examples of questions you can answer with the OED
*Is a particular word from Yorkshire or Australia?
*What were the new words to talk about horseracing in 1700?
*Which words do we trace back to Shakespeare?
*Which decade sees the most words relating to football first recorded?
*What are the 93 nouns that have been used for rain throughout the history of English?
*Who contributes the earliest known evidence for more English words, Chaucer or Milton?
*How are social changes reflected in language, from the 250 words related to motoring dated from 1900-09, and the number of film-related words from between 1920-1939?”
(Comparison).
So, you brought up the OED in response to my using a definition of “folks” for what reason?
This perhaps:
*Is “folks” from Yorkshire or Australia?
*What were the new words to talk about “folks” in 1700?
*Which “folks” do we trace back to Shakespeare?
*Which decade sees the most “folks” words relating to football first recorded?
*What are the 93 nouns that have been used for “folks” throughout the history of English?
*Who contributes the earliest known evidence for “folks,” Chaucer or Milton?
*How are social changes reflected in language, from the 250 words related to “folks” dated from 1900-09, and the number of film-related “folks” from between 1920-1939?”
You think that your BS is a coherent practice contributing to this conversation?
Or does the use of the word “torture” bring up your apologetics for Cheney, Bush II, and your other political associates?
Dredd – you still haven’t cited the OED for the word ‘folk’ or ‘folks.’ And you can BS about it as much as you want, still you sidestep the issue at hand.
Endeavor: “I believe (and yes I do not know), that in the remote future when our descendants will look back in time and see how we handled the issue of terrorism, how our presidents dealt with it, and what kind of characters were able to get our votes, they would wonder/ask what the heck was wrong with us.”
What is a leader?
What are the essential duties and responsibilities of a patriarch (or matriarch) and alpha of the pack, particularly when the pack faces a threat?
American dominance, with the kind of social condition that’s practically enabled by American dominance, is not an entitlement or default state. It’s earned – and lost – in competition.
You seem to be assuming a safe, secure, American-dominated future defined by a social condition where we won the War on Terror by such a lopsided margin that the terrorists and their fellow travelers were reduced to a marginal footnote, the harms caused by terrorists to us and others were acceptably low, and our descendants have been gifted the luxury of judging the competitive ethical behavior of the US as the heaviest consideration of the historical episode.
If we can win the War on Terror by such a lopsided margin that we’re able to hand off to our descendants the uneasy sentiment that, in hindsight, we overreacted at times and compromised our values while solving the terrorist problem, I’ll take that trade-off.
Anyway, I’m afraid the opportunity has come and again for a victory that allows the luxury of our ethical behavior to be the heaviest consideration. At the point that Bush handed off the War on Terror to Obama, we had earned a superior practical position – most pivotally with geopolitically critical Iraq – from which we could win the War on Terror so perhaps our descendants could judge us unkindly for earning an American-dominated world for their sake. That opportunity is now gone.
The deliberately self-caused loss of our superior position under Obama has been incredible. The heavy-lifting was done with Bush. Obama simply needed to stay the course with Iraq and the Bush Freedom Agenda like Eisenhower stayed the course from Truman. Yet Obama failed to reach even that minimum threshold of leadership. Obama didn’t even fritter away our superior practical position in the War on Terror with better ethical behavior.
Well, maybe now we’re on course for our descendants to judge us more kindly for losing the contest to the terrorists, instead.
Jill
And in the UK, another torture coverup: The Senate report on the CIA’s interrogation programme, due to be released in days, will confirm that the US tortured terrorist suspects after 9/11. In advance of the release, Barack Obama admitted on Friday: “We tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values.”
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Dissenters have been pointing out U.S. torture since way back before Iraq was invaded.
Paul C. Schulte
Dredd – there is a big difference between the Oxford Dictionary which you cite in your article and the Oxford English Dictionary.
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Yes, such as:
“The OED: key features
Historical dictionary.
Helps you to discover how English words and meanings have changed over time.
oxforddictionaries: key features
Current dictionary.
Provides current definitions of English words as they are used today.”
The very Old English is not readable by most modern American English speaking people.
Which may be why you are stuck in the past (Holy Grail Dictionary) of incoherent obscurity or may be why you don’t keep up with those you converse with today.
That may be why some of the other bloggers here who are making comments today point that out to you too.
If you want to show a difference in the word “folks” between or among dictionaries, then show us what you are talking about by linking to the OED version … unless of course you don’t have a subscription and are bloviating.
Dredd – one of the features of all dictionaries is that they are all at least one year out of date. The OED tells what the word originally meants, where it came from and gives you the sentences they found it in as the meaning changed. You can see the progress of the word. It is the difference between driving a Rolls Royce and a VW Bug.
Any definition that you are using is probably changing as we comment.
And in the UK, another torture coverup: The Senate report on the CIA’s interrogation programme, due to be released in days, will confirm that the US tortured terrorist suspects after 9/11. In advance of the release, Barack Obama admitted on Friday: “We tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values.”
Now, in a letter to the human rights group Reprieve, former foreign secretary William Hague has confirmed that the UK government has held discussions with the US about what it intends to reveal in the report which, according to al-Jazeera, acknowledges that the British territory of Diego Garcia was used for extraordinary rendition.
“We have made representations to seek assurances that ordinary procedures for clearance of UK material will be followed in the event that UK material provide[d] to the Senate committee were to be disclosed,” Hague wrote.
Cori Crider, a director at Reprieve, accused the UK government of seeking to redact embarrassing information: “This shows that the UK government is attempting to censor the US Senate’s torture report. In plain English, it is a request to the US to keep Britain’s role in rendition out of the public domain.”
Lawyers representing a number of terrorist suspects held at Guantánamo Bay believe their clients were rendered via Diego Garcia. Papers found in Libya indicated that the US planned to transport Abdul-Hakim Belhaj, an opponent of Muammar Gaddafi, and his wife via the territory, an atoll in the Indian Ocean leased by Britain to the US. The government has denied Belhaj was rendered via Diego Garcia, but there are suspicions that others were held on the atoll.”
find at Guardian
Follow…l
ROBINSON: There was a contradiction yesterday that I’m still struggling to understand. The leadership statement, when the [border bill] didn’t pass essentially said, ‘Well, there are plenty of administrative things that President Obama can do and should be doing at the border, and that was a day after the House voted to sue President Obama for taking administrative actions.
COLE: (Laughs)
ROBINSON: So, how does that square?
COLE: Well, I’m not going to disagree with you because it’s a point I made myself in conference. Look, you can’t say on the one hand that the president’s overreaching by acting without legislative authority and direction, and then refuse to give him legislative authority and direction in another area. So, I don’t disagree with what you have to say at all.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/gop-wants-obama-circumvent-congress-less-and-more
(From Maddow yes but a quote not her opinion)
Once again if the repubs say it it’s okay (Let the president take action for us)
If it is not something they like (The president taking executive action on the ACA (of course it was after the repubs pounded him about the employer mandates which was what he changed) then he should be sued.
They need to pick a lane.
Dredd – there is a big difference between the Oxford Dictionary which you cite in your article and the Oxford English Dictionary.
When the OED has an inferior definition I use another dictionary.
It figures.
My comment about the Holy Grail user who could not find the link to the OED in my comment got eaten.
If you want an example of my past usage of the OED when it has a better presentation can be seen here.
It is in the first sentence of that post.
Dredd – I have told you before that the way you link behind words does not show up on my computer. If you want me to see your link, you have to use the link not hide it behind a word or words.