Sounds like Chucky has eaten too many breakfasts at Waffle House.

I'm trying to get a grip on this strange Republican/Conservative inability to grasp the difference between simulated training and the real thing. By Krauthammer's logic (an oxymoron, I realize) a person who gets training in a jet simulator could step out after a training "flight" and declare themselves dogfight veterans.

Reading Krauthammer's round the rosy explanation here might possibly qualify as torture though.

I liked him better when he was playing the crypt keeper on Tales from the Crypt

I watched Donnie Deutch (Spelling?) on Hardball with Chris Mattthews, engage in a chickenhawk pseudo-tough guy dick measuring contest with Matthews about this stupid "ticking time-bomb" scenario. It was all about how the President has to make tough calls, and if someone you knew a terrorist had knowledge only a liberal pussy would not torture.

Like the Lt. Colonel, I call bullshit. I've now seen several chickenhawks (two Cheneys, Limbaugh, Hannity, etc) use this rhetorical canard to justify turning our troops and intelligence personell into torturers.

The simple answer is this, If I erroneouslly beleived that torturing someone was the only way to save someone I loved, I would do it, then face the cosequences of my illegal and immoral actions. I'd take my day in court.

That's where the Cheney's, Limbaughs', and Hannity's argument falls down. This is a nation of laws.

If you break laws,

face the consequences

If you believe you are justified in breaking an injust law, as Martin Luther King was when he wrote his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail Cell," then after you break the law, submit yourself to the courts for a fair trial and argue your case in court.

Cheney, Yoo, Addington, and the rest of the torture apologists have been trying to circumvent and duck their legal obligations and the consequences of actions they claim are justified.

That says to me that they know they cannot justify torture under any circumstances.

Krauthammer kept us safe! If only our soldiers were as brave as he is, we'd have licked those bastards a long time ago. I know his work at the Washington Post is incredibly valuable, but at some point we have to unleash all our weapons or the land we love will be no more. I know Krauthammer is itching to go - let him! That's a Surge we can believe in.

Captain Kirk,
For the record the the waterboarding in training is no more simulated that what was apparently used in the interrogations. It is factually wrong for you to use the term assimilated for the SERE training.

Your analogy with jet simulators is incorrect.

On Krauthammer's column, I agree it is illogical and the reason. It is so because Krauthammer is dancing to try and justify his hypocrisy. He is a man without scruple.

I do find the focus on waterboarding distracting. There are 101 violations of the conventions, and the watervoarding is no where near the top of the list.

Subjecting larger groups of men in the thousands, many patently innocent or simply accused by neighbors with an agenda, to humiliation documented with the threat of public exposure, is much worse than waterboarding exactly three people -- one of whom hacked off Danny Pearls head.

Am I missing something here? The SERE argument seems to me to be of the type: it is not a bad thing when two consenting participants partake of it, so it cannot be a bad thing even when only one of the participants is consenting.

Hmm. Like I said, am I missing something here?

Criminy, do we have to go through this again? We waterboard soldiers in SERE training precisely to give them a taste of torture. That's the whole friggin point.

one of whom hacked off Danny Pearls head.

Allegedly.

This is important. If you are saying he deserved his torture, then you are justifying torture as a punishment, rather than a means to extract information. But for his punishment to be warranted, under US law, he would need to be convicted of something first. He wasn't. Thus your argument falls apart.

If more torture-defenders would just admit that "enhanced interrogation" was simply vengeance and bloodlust, we could cut through this "necessary intelligence" BS and get to the heart of the matter.

Vet,
"one of whome *allegedly* hacked off Danny Pearls[sic] head."

Again, this is a nation of laws. In this country, all suspected criminals, be they 3 alleged terrorist or thousands of alleged torturers, are entitled to due process.

Just because you are in a class of suspects that might include thousands of does not give you a pass.

Our current situation perverts justice by denying due process to some suspects while willfully allowing others to avoid due process.

ONe has to wonder what secrets were gleaned from the SERE boarding of those troops. Of the 10,000 or so, how many were able to produce usable information on where, say, the best pizzeria was in the vacinity of the boarding.

These GOP clowns have no shame. These creepy humans, sent out by the RNC/Bushit lemmings to talk shows to pitch this crap are second only to the creepy pundits, like Matthews, who allow them air time to spew this crap. These pundits do America a great disservice allowing this modicum of credibility to enhance this ongoing debacle. Nauseating...

Getting Republicans and torture apologists to see the truth these days is like seeing a snake with legs - it just ain't gonna happen sometime soon! -Kevo

Krauthammer wants to avoid "semantic" arguments in the sense that he wants to avoid arguments using words that "mean" something.

This argument as to whether waterboarding is or is not torture is circular and he got caught in it. The issue really is whether we (the good guys) have considered it torture in the past and have brought enemey perpetrators to trial. We have. My grandmother was involved in infamous Double Tenth Incident at Changi PRison in WWII ( wrote about it in a play using he memoirs: www.tighsolas.ca/page 745.html ... THe Japanese Kempetai (or gestapo) were tried for their acts in 1946, many convicted to death and in the trial (documented in a 'law school classic; The Trial of Sumida Haruzo, waterboarding was deemed one of the worse tortures, if there is a hierarchy of such things and there was.

Dr Krauthammer Or How I stopped worrying and loved to Waterboard

Allegedly.

I can't even find "alleged" in front of torture in Googling thousands of mentions of torture here. Hmmm?

Hitler's role in the Holocaust as he got no trial, no attorney, no confrontation and cross examination of witnesses and no Miranda.

That's because Hitler allegedly committed suicide. Not much need for a trial at that point.

Anyway, we can at least all agree that torture is wrong and it comes in many more forms than just "waterboarding".

McGruber,

Firstly, I love you on SNL. You're great man.

Secondly, you sound like such a good Christian that maybe defending your cowardly compatriots of torture is unfitting for you? Or do you concede your soul to Hell?

He doesn't believe waterboarding is torture, but said the opposite in a Washington Post piece to "get away from the semantic argument"? What does that even mean?

What it means is, "For the sake of argument, let's say waterboarding is torture and torture is impermissible. That given, waterboarding is permissible."

No, it still doesn't make sense.

Yes, the SERE argument is absurd, but, it doesn't stop such as Ron Christy, Cheney's shill, from spouting it as he did, yesterday, to David Gregory. Gregory let it pass.

Who said I was a good Christian?
Certainly not me.
Posted by: McGruber

So if your not a good Christian, are you a bad Christian?

If your not Christian at all, why do you identify with conservatism?

What we have in common is a belief that less government is good, especially at the federal level.

After all, it's working so well in Somalia.

Interesting, I too am a Catholic. I come from a small town in a western state and voted for Bush in 2000 (::duck head::). I'm pro military, generally conservative and don't care for big gov.

I guess however that's where you and I part ways. After watching and listening to Bush for about two months into his presidency, I became mortified at the complete incompetence of the man. I began to get that "what have we done feeling". Unfortunately, the next 7 years and 10 months proved that feeling right.

Meanwhile the party of Lincoln has drifted so far to the right I don't even recognize it anymore. I only see a corporate oligarchy interested in keeping its wealth and influence masked in Christian right clothing.

Perhaps McGruber, given the ideals you espouse, you should leave the Republican brand and, I don't know, maybe join the John Birch Society.

Hilzoy,

As long as you keep talking about specific techniques, and allow the neo-cons to do the same, you are playing their game.

This isn't about techniques: it is about the torture program. The fact that it was a program, even an alternative system of justice, is the key detail.

This is why the torture memos are important: they show a top down authorization of a torture program.

What the program gets you that torture doesn't is hopelessness. You don't just separate people from humanity like you do with imprisonment, you show them that there is no humanity. You even deprive them of the hope of dying from the procedures. The line "don't worry, we won't let you die" is more of a threat that the torture will never end than a statement of humane treatment.

With a single act of torture, you may hope that it ends, but with daily doses of this stuff, it never does end. You go from pain to the fear of pain.

Letting Cheney or Mr. K get away with debating if a technique is torture playing right into their hands. It also keeps the culpability with the interrogators and sets up a prosecution which would require detailed evidence of specific actions. But if you look at it as a torture program, you already have plenty of evidence. And that is where you should continuously turn the discussion.

One way to look at the situations re torture and the unreleased photos is that extreme liberals value process over outcome, while extreme conservatives value outcome over process. I doubt that any conservative who’s argued in favor of waterboarding, etc., has tried to place himself in the position of the suspect being waterboarded; in his mind, anyone being subjected to that treatment has already done hellish things, is a hellishly bad person, has threatened innocent lives, and so, what’s done to him doesn’t matter. All that matters is defusing the threat. If challenged, they’ll resort immediately to weak arguments such as the “ticking time bomb� scenario because they expect people to share their concerns (dread) at the thought of innocent lives being lost.

As for the photos, I don’t see any point, really, in releasing them. People following the news know that detainees have been abused. Publicizing the photos won’t change that abstract knowledge a bit, nor will it ensure good treatment of detainees in the future. The photos could very well increase anti-American sentiment among people who don’t have the same cultures, don’t have the same exposure to news reports, don’t have the same worldviews -- aren’t like us. Basing the demand for release of the photos on the promise of “transparency� is a case of heavily valuing process over outcome.

SRS

But I prefer to think of myself who puts the safety and security of the country first and damn what anyone else around the world thinks.

While it's nice to meet a rightie who has a little wit and can write in complete sentences, I am dismayed by McGruber's repetition of the above neo-con drivel.

First of all, the boilerplate. Who isn't for the safety and security of the country?

Second, the easy slander. He infers, contrary to evidence, that liberals want to put the counry in danger.

Third, the belligerence. Damning the rest of the world isn't the best route to security and safety.

Fourth, the arrogance. As if there is only one true way to promote America's interests. Neo-con policies, going back to the eighties, have created a verifiable legacy of death, dislocation and misery the world over without much benefit to any but a slivered elite profitting from military-industrial finance schemes.

At least admit, McGruber, that your discredited ideology is nothing more a con game meant to disguise greed and tribalism.

Somalia's problem is definitely too little federal government.

Obviously. The place is a loony libertarian paradise -- no central government at all.

There's no problem with Islamic extremism and terrorism, tribalism, piracy, lack of natural resources, or anything like that.

Sounds like the kind of problems for which governments are instituted among people.

Of course, I could simply point out places like China and the Soviet Union as examples of too much government.

What, not the United States? Then what's your beef? (Wait, I know -- you don't have to pay taxes to China or the Soviet Union.)

No one's saying that there is no such thing as too much government -- nice straw man, there, jackass -- but it's telling indeed that you didn't include any of the other major economic powers -- the US, England, France, Germany, Japan, for example -- which have both robust economic development, a strong tradition of personal and economic liberty, and a strong central government.

Coincidence? I don't think so.

So, you're a man of personal responsibility? Then, Mc Gruber, why put the economic meltdown on freddiemac and fannymae instead of the derivatives and debt swap geniouses who were gaming the investments of others into high risk ventures, and who ultimately laid what has been so far seen as an industry-wide ponzi scheme?

Where are your cries for justice to be served on these individuals who allowed their avarice to corrupt our entire economy? If you champion the private over the public, who do you propose to police the greed of the individual that leads to the financial destruction of other hard-working people?

Because, Mr. McGruber, you have conveniently left out addressing this very real dynamic as you have been so easily making your argument that government is the problem.

You sound like Ronnie Reagan, so let me remind you, he is dead! -Kevo

Go ahead and try to institute a central government in Somalia. It won't be the first one attempted and probably won't be the last.

What are you complaining about? As I've said, and you tacitly admit, Somalia is a loony libertarian paradise -- no central government at all! Totally Hobbesian -- war of all against all, life nasty, brutish and short, the whole enchilada.

The question isn't whether a strong central government is possible; the question is whether its current state as a loony libertarian paradise is desirable. Non-crazy people at least since Hobbes' time have decided that it isn't. Hobbes was willing to tolerate an absolute autocrat in order to avoid it; non-insane residents of modern liberal democracies are willing to pay a few taxes in order to avoid it.

As for Somalia, you can have it. At least Marxists have a point that Communism has never really been tried. Loony libertarians can't make the same claim -- but I don't see them hurrying to move to the libertarian paradise.

First, you have to get those [strike]tribes[/strike] states to act as one nation. Good luck with that.

-- 1776 McGruber.

Robust economic developement?

Surely you jest.

Nope.

Japan is moribund. Has been in a funk for years. Decades even.

And yet still has the fifth biggest GDP in the world. Funny, that.

(I might add that Japan's "moribund" economy, by not indulging in the kind of unregulated finances that our own Geniuses of Capitalism did, has been weathering the global recession somewhat better than we.)

Ireland beats them all

Not even close. It ranks 56th in overall GDP.

Look, maybe you think the federal government can and will solve all our problems.

You really never get tired of straw men, do you?

Now why would you trust them to fix the auto industry?

Since our Geniuses of Capitalism already screwed it up, why not?

Or health care?

Oh, that's easy -- thanks to our Genuiuses of Capitalism, our heath care system costs more and delivers less than most. By contrast, the government-run systems are much more cost effective, despite all the propaganda from the business interests currently making money off it.

Better trolls, please.

It must be hard to have a mouth that contains nothing but shit.