President (To Win Colorado)
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(R) Donald Trump
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20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(R) V. Archuleta
98%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Marshall Dawson
95%
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CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(D) Adam Frisch
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48%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(D) Trisha Calvarese
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CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(D) River Gassen
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(R) Sergei Matveyuk
90%
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DEMOCRATS
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May 16, 2007 06:37 AM UTC
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and in professional positions of responsibility think, that matters. Ron Paul is right, and Guiliani is wrong. Your staement that Guiliani “smacks down Ron Paul” is….frankly, delusional wishful thinking,
Read this…and feel free to argue with the author on this thread you started. Momma always said (something like this:-), “Once a job has begun, it is not finished until its done. Be the job great or small, do it right or not at all”
http://www.slate.com…
I’ll say it again….I’ve never seen such dangerous incompetence in my lifetime….and I’m not a young man.
Tell me that wasn’t a smack down
Let me make sure that we are talking about the same exchange:
RP: No. Non-intervention was a major contributing factor. Have you ever read the reasons they attacked us? They attack us because we’ve been over there; we’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We’ve been in the Middle East — I think Reagan was right.
We don’t understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics. So right now we’re building an embassy in Iraq that’s bigger than the Vatican. We’re building 14 permanent bases. What would we say here if China was doing this in our country or in the Gulf of Mexico? We would be objecting. We need to look at what we do from the perspective of what would happen if somebody else did it to us.
RG: Wendell, may I comment on that? That’s really an extraordinary statement. That’s an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of September 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don’t think I’ve heard that before, and I’ve heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th.
If that is the exchange, which I think it is, it was an intentional misrepresentation, and really Guiliani skirted the issue entirely while trying to score points with an audience that doesnt care about Ron Paul to begin with.
Only included the last line of Paul’s statement, which sucks 🙁 If the rest of what you quoted was from his statement (which I believe you that it was), it does seem to be a misrepresentation, at least in the sense that it doesn’t seem that Paul was drawing a conclusion between our being in Iraq and Sept 11th.
I would give RG the benefit of the doubt in the sense that I don’t think it was deliberate….though the end result is still the same
And the crowd response showed just how effective it was. Its like the witty comeback, except its on a grand stage.
I saw the clip and I have to say that I love the internet for this very reason. It seemed a little hokey to me, and a quick five minute search I found the quotes. Read in context, rudy’s response is an attempt to play the crowd, and they ate it up.
Not only was it deliberate, but I bet he thought up some witty, crowd pleasing retorts. He is trying to play his trump card, 9/11, as if he is the only person that was impacted by that day.
This was a republican primary debate. As far as boosting him for the that group it probably did him wonders, but as far as his response being reasonable or even realistic he wiffed it horribly.
Apparently a few republicans are calling for ron paul to be “disallowed” from being on the debate. They feel that his saying America was the least bit responsible for this was wrong.
We need some GD politicians that really believe in the “buck stops here”. We need some politicians who will call a spade a spade. And more importantly, they will start doing the right thing.
That is right wing political correctness that’s every bit as censorious as can be without being government sponsored.
It doesn’t speak well of the electorate’s sophistication if they really believe anyone would want to destroy our society because they see our freedom and just can’t stand it. Come on, what kind of fairy tale world do people think we live in?
Here you go. The part that sux about this, is that he was making headway (heck even pols finally showed him in the polls) and suddenly the republicans are pulling out stops to stop him.
Ron Paul is like Antonin Scalia. I am diametrically opposed to almost all of their positions, but it is tough not to respect them.
I dont feel like he said that America was responsible for 9/11. I feel like he said that we need to take a step back and look at our actions from an outside point of view. This is something that americans refuse to do. Maybe “refuse” isnt the right word. Unwilling maybe, or even unable.
I like Ron Paul for stating the unpopular. Ladies and gentlemen, he is truly a maverick.
Let us not forget that we overthrew the only indigenous democracy in the region (Iran, under Mossadegh), and that we installed both the Shah and the Ba’athists. And then, there is the galactic case of Kelo v. City of New London now known as “Israel” — Ahmedinejad correctly pointed out that it was created to solve a strictly European problem. Say what you will, but the animus we have generated in the region is, for the most part, well-earned.
Ron Paul is like Antonin Scalia. I am diametrically opposed to almost all of their positions, but it is tough not to respect them.
Come. Join our Dark side. Know the power.
Seriously, a couple of decades ago, I use to think that a PURE communism or even socialism was not only doable, but desirable (USSR and china had nothing to do with communist though we call them that). But over the decades, after seeing great men like FDR, Eisenhower, and JFK, we have had such corrupt and poor leadership in individuals by Nixon (good ideas overall, lack of char and ablilty to convince others), Reagan (I regard reagan as the 2’nd worst pres; horrible ideas and a true lack of scruples; oct. surprise and iran-contra just to name a few of his scandals), and W.(the worst; ZERO scruples, ZERO ideas; The only reason why he accomplish what he has is because the R’s controlled congres; hopefully he will go to Leavenworth before this is done). Since 1983, I became a believer in the Libertarians due to watching how reagan was running our country in the ground. What is attractive about it, is that it wants to minimize what the feds can do. Truly. By minimizing the taxes, the spending, and interference with our citizens, we can then seek our happiness.
Libertarianism is intriguing. If I were to become a libertarian I would be a sort of Bill Maher libertarian. There is a lot of government programs that I want excised. The MPAA for instance. The FCC is another one. But at the same time there are a lot of programs that only the government should run. Prisons, air traffic control, roads, to name a few.
The problem I have with libertarianism, as I understand it, is that the end goal is government deregulation and subsequent corporate takeover. Corporations are in the business of making money. The government is not in the business of making money, and as such can take all-comers. Private schools, for example, will only accept the best. They will not accept the autistic, or the downs syndrome. Private prisons are horrendous violators of constitutional rights. They often do not provide for the needs of individual prisoners, because it costs too much. Government can not deny to anybody, but corporations can.
During tonight’s presidential debates, candidates were asked whether they would support the use of waterboarding -a technique, defined as torture by the Justice Department, that simulates drowning and makes the subject “believe his death is imminent while ideally not causing permanent physical damage.”
Both former mayor Rudy Giuliani and Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) suggested they would support using the technique. Specifically asked about waterboarding, Giuliani said he would allow “every method [interrogators] could think of and I would support them in doing it.” Tancredo later added, “I’m looking for Jack Bauer,” referencing the television character who has used torture techniques such as suffocation and electrocution on prisoners.
The audience applauded loudly after both statements. (A Republican audience I would presume)
Why do Republican candidates and audiences hate American values so much?
The CD-6 Republican Assembly is a cross between a tent revival and Orwell’s Two-Minutes’ Hate. Moderates attend at their own risk. Everyone vying for a spot as a delegate to our national convention last cycle invoked Ronald Reagan, but they all seem to have selective amnesia regarding what he stood for. And the Gipper is surely rolling in his grave.
Tom Tancredo is merely a reflection of what we have become.
Reagan understood the indefeasible connection between human rights and freedom, that all human rights are individual in character, and the often vast gulf between a politician’s words and his deeds. As he noted, our Founding Fathers held that each individual has certain rights so basic and fundamental to his dignity as a human being that no government may violate them, and that we as citizens have a right to expect our courts to enforce them. “They proclaim the belief — and represent a specific means of enforcing the belief — that the individual comes first, [and] that the Government is the servant of the people, and not the other way around.” Ronald Reagan, Speech (to the National Strategy Forum), May 4, 1988. But he rightly observes that in the real world, many do not enjoy these rights: Some governments “make elaborate claims that citizens under their rule enjoy human rights,” … but “[e]ven if words look good on paper, the absence of structural safeguards against abuse of power means they can be taken away as easily as they are allowed.” Ronald Reagan, Speech (Proclamation of Human Rights Day), Dec. 10, 1987. We don’t even respect the human rights of our own citizens any more; how can we be trusted to respect the rights of others?
That we would even entertain the thought of “waterboarding” shows how far we as a nation have descended down the road to fascism. America was more than a country to me. It was a dream. A promise. Today, that promise is broken. The dream lies shattered. America was murdered. And it died amid raucous cheers.
As verbose as I can be at times, I’m speechless.
as true to its expressed values as we often imagine it to be, and to have been. We have always been, and continue to be, just another nation, neither particularly more nor less noble than the rest. We can always point to other nations that have committed attrocities we have not, but brush over our own all too easily (the conquest and genocide of the indigenous population; the enslavement and, until quite recently, the continued legal discrimination against a captured and brutally transported foreign population; two crimes against humanity that certainly measure up to the Holocaust in their degree of horror). And we rarely point to others whose humanity and commitment to freedom has excelled beyond our own by almost all measures (particularly the nations of northwestern Europe: The Netherlands and the Scandanavian nations).
We justify international aggession by declaring ourselves benevolent, ignoring the constant outcries from the “beneficiaries” of our “benevolence” calling us, quite rightly, international bullies. Like any nation, we act primarily in our own interest, and like many nations, we justify self-interested aggression with delusions of our moral superiority. Sound familiar? Holocausts and genocides are always so justified in the minds of those who engage in them, as is international conquest and hegemony. We claim to believe in democracy, but set ourselves up as global hegemons without so much as a passing deference to the democratic desires of those upon whom we impose our will.
Having said all that, I will now say something very surprising: Imperialism isn’t all bad, and, all things considered, American imperialism could potentially have been a very positive course for the future of the world, but not in the form it is coming to take. We have been too crass about it, too indifferent to the sensibilities of those we “conquer,” too reluctant to bring them into the fold we have been striving to create. Even Rome did better on that score! And Alexander the Great certainly did. No conqueror builds a lasting empire by alienating the conquered. The future of political globalization will very likely take the form of global resistance to American domination, and we will be the odd-man-out in the end (like Austria was as a result of German unification in the 19th century).
Certainly, our generations-old flirtation with fascism has been taken to a new level by 9-11, a very predictable outcome, and one we should have been more vigilant to avert than to avert another attack.
America has always been pragmatic when it comes to foreign policy, and pragmatism means ignoring all the ideals our own nation is founded upon when dealing with others. Unfortunately the American public likes those ideals and believes that the rest of the world would like to enjoy them. (Americans even delude themselves that the rest of the world wishes to be like America.) So the government has to obscure its dealings with foreign nations when they’re dictatorships, either telling the public that they’re “crucial allies in the war on blah blah blah” (used to be “communism,” now it’s “terrorism”) or simply not saying anything at all. And if said ally is about as enlightened and advanced as Ivan the Terrible’s Russia, that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
Indeed. Let us not even pretend to strive for ideals. It’s every man for himself.
If that’s what America has become, then America truly is dead. Certainly, it ain’t worth fighting or dying for.
for a long, long time (centuries, at least). Humanity is one nation now, one race, one people, no matter how fragmented we may remain by the obsolete borders and always-insane religious wars bequeathed to us by history. Political entities form in response to challenges and opportunities, which are affected most dramatically by changing technologies. To oversimplfy a far more complex and varied pattern: Tribes became city-states, city-states gave way to empires, empires crumbled into principalities, principalities gave way to nations, and nations are giving way to a slowly emerging and decentralized global entity. I wouldn’t fight and die for a tribe (though many have), or a city-state (though many have), or an empire (though many have), or a principality (though many have)…, why should anyone fight and die for the next obsolete political form in the evolving drama? I would consider fighting and dying for humanity, but I’d much rather and laugh and live for humanity: It seems so much more to the point.
To secure the basic rights inherent to man?
Is personal liberty worth more than life or at least, worth risking that life for?
or ambiguous a value to die for: “Human happiness,” though it may not seem at first glance to be less abstract, is something I would consider worth dying for. Personal liberty is a means to that end, not the end itself.
And, frankly, I have never believed in the existance of “natural rights,” though I have always considered the concept a very useful fiction. There are, obviously, no rights in nature: Rights are defined into existance by human political activity. So personal liberty, IMHO, is not “inherent to man,” but rather an institutional invention whose value I fully appreciate.
If you are let alone on a desert island, you can engage in a certain set of activities. This is your portfolio of “rights” as a human.
Governments can only curtail those rights; they cannot bestow a single one upon us. After all, what they can give, they can also take away; these are best distinguished by denoting them as “liberties.”
We cede certain rights to preserve the remainder, as we know that if we do not, they will be taken from us by force.
think that your interpretation, in effect, deprives the word “rights” of any meaning.
To summarize your argument: On a desert island, there is no society, therefore no rules and no system of punishments, and therefore no curtailing of one’s natural rights. Thus, one has unlimited rights in nature, which society can only deprive one of, and can never bestow.
These rights in nature, of course, consist only of those things that one can do on the desert isle, in the absence of the society and its products that did not happen to accompany the castaway or otherwise find their way to this haven from societal impositions. That excludes many capabilities that society does in fact bestow, through social institutions and human technologies. So if “rights” means “the ability to do things unimpeded,” then nature does indeed deprive people of rights (there are many impediments in nature), and human society does indeed bestow rights (as described above). If your definition of rights means “the ability to do whatever circumstances permit unimpeded by human intervention,” then you have created a tautology in which, by definition, rights are unlimited in nature and obstructed only by human intervention. I, of course, can create a diametrically opposed tautology if I so desire: My definition of “rights” is those liberties which a society defines into existance within the context of its social institutions. There: Now we have two competing tautologies, neither one of which can claim precedence over the other (except that only one actually bears a resemblance to the history of the word and concept under discussion, but we’ll let that go). Under the circumstances, we’re compelled to go past the tautologies, and try to make sense of the concept of “rights.”
First, let’s discuss “nature” in the absence of human beings. One creature may be eaten by another, may be lame and left behind by his/her own kind, or may suffer any unlimited number of unfortunate fates. That creature has no natural right not to be eaten by another, or not to be left alone by its own kind. Male lions, when they take over a pride, kill all of the cubs sired by any other male (i.e., all of the cubs in the pride). This strikes us as horrible, but it is completely natural, and completely indifferent to the rights of the poor, cute, cuddly cubs brutally ripped apart by Mr. Macho. Let’s, for the sake of simplicity, ignore for this argument the many situations in nature in which certain behaviors are, in fact, proscribed by an animal pack, and can result in punishments ranging from death to banishment. For the purposes of argument, I’ll acknowledge that all creatures in nature have the “right” to do whatever they want. But they have no right to protection from brutality, and so, as I’ll demonstrate, their “right” to do whatever they want is irrelevant.
Now let’s return to your castaway. He has unlimited rights, because there is no society present to enforce any rules. Of course, there is no society present to provide any protection or to facilitate any cooperative productivity among diverse human beings either. His “rights” include doing anything that the materials on the island and his own isolated capabilities permit: Not much. He has the right to free speech, but no one to hear it; to free assembly, but no one to assemble with; and so on. The only “right” I can think of in this context that would correspond to any “right” prohibited in a political context is the right to consume whatever herbs that may grow wild on that island that are prohibited “on the mainland.”
So where’s the meat on your concept of rights? That on a desert island one can do whatever they want (given, of course, that it lies within the provenance of the feeble resources available)? In other words, on a desert isle one can do whatever circumstances permit, which is what you define as unlimited rights. I’ve got news for you, one can do whatever circumstances permit anywhere, not just on a desert island: I can ingest any substance I can get my hands on, legal or illegal; I can piss in public, assault police officers, kill someone for annoying me, whatever. So the only difference is that in a human society the social institutions that people have forged may provide consequences that nature alone would not. You confuse that with denying people of natural rights. As I argued above, defining rights as “those capabilities of action which human beings sometimes obstruct” is clearly a tautology, but one which sheds no light on the concept of rights. From a synoptic view, the human enforcers are just one more factor in nature imposing one more set of constraints: A cub can be killed by a lion; a felon (or not) can be thrown in jail by a cop. The world is full of dangers.
Rights, as a concept, has to mean more than “that which people could do in the absence of human society.” For one thing, most of what we consider to be fundamental rights wouldn’t relevance within that definition: Freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and so on. (Please don’t argue that you are not talking about the absence of human society, just the absence of rules and enforcement: Despite Margaret Mead’s completely discredited study of the blissful Samoans, all evidence suggests that all human societies of all shapes and sizes utilize systems of rewards and punishments to achieve a system of cooperative coexistance). So what is a more reasonable definition of rights than that which is both tautological and irrelevant?
Here’s where you got it right: It is indeed human society that defines “rules” into existance. Your mistake was in assuming that the absence of rules means the existance of unlimited rights. In reality, human societies define “rules” and “rights” into existance simultaneously. That which is not prohibited by a rule is permitted as a right. Rights are the counterpart, not the absence, of rules.
If you think about clearly, you’ll realize that one is neither limited by rules nor liberated by rights on your desert isle: They are simply left to fend for themselves.
Of course, we could institute a new era of commitment to human rights by simply shunning and exiling law-breakers, “rather than” depriving them of their rights: Let them fend for themselves on a desert isle, where their natural rights are left undiminished. But, of course, that would be the grossest assault on their rights, because rights refers to rights as citizens. And depriving one of citizenship anywhere and everywhere deprives them of all of their rights, including, almost always, the right to life itself.
It is the Framers’ conception of natural rights, and as such, the one undergirding our Constitution. Brutus speaks of “the state of nature” in Anti-Federalist #84 as a default position (noting that in that state, the strong are at liberty to victimize the weak).
Even in the simplest society, accommodations have to be made for the common good. If cavemen Ogg and Bogg agree that Ogg won’t take Bogg’s bearskins, whilst Bogg won’t take Ogg’s lion-skins, you have a functional society, albeit with the obvious problem of enforcement.
Our sophisticated modern society is not all that different; we cede certain of our inalienable human rights so that we may preserve the remainder, as it is in our common interest to do so. The technological innovations of which you speak are only possible, as a practical matter, on account of the fact that at some point, our forefathers reached an accord and we bought into it. This compact is codified in various contractual arrangements, such as the Constitution and Bill of Rights, the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, but the end result is the same: “Society” is a covenant, and our nation-state is little more than a mutual defense pact. A “citizen” is merely a signatory to that covenant, which can be dissolved at any time (principally, by emigration).
What does society ultimately bestow? Certainly not “rights,” for as Goldwater reminds us, “Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have.” If anything, “society” can only grant liberties, which are always defeasible. Indeed, to even invoke the term “rights” in the context you present here is nonsensical; as former Attorney General Ramsey Clark put it, “A right is not what someone gives you; it’s what no one can take away from you.”
Rather by definition, the person on the desert island has no need of “protection from brutality.” But if a second man is washed ashore, the need is suddenly created. It is here that “rights” must be bartered, as the freedom to swing your fist might, as Frankfurter suggested, be limited by the proximity of my jaw. The right to free speech and assembly, while not sensible in the absence of others, can readily be understood outside the context of that compact known as government: You can associate with others through your own private accords, which, under the conception of rights we are discussing here, can be seen as an extension of that right to contract that makes government possible.
No one is “liberated” by rights; they are simply attributes you have by virtue of being human. This view of rights was implicit in this passage from the DoI: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, – That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
You can accept the socialist view, but in so doing, you have to concede that there is no such thing as a “right.” If it can be said that there is no right to life, then atrocities such as the Holocaust, the gulags, and Abu Ghraib become not only permissible, but seemingly inevitable.
I’m wondering if we’re not getting lost in semantics here.
Fair enough. I still am convinced that “rights,” which is a political concept, has no meaning without a political context. In a sense, that is a semantic argument. But the opposite semantic argument, that “rights” refers to whatever is not prohibited, even in the absence of a political entity to do the prohibiting, removes the word (and concept) from the context which produced it, and, in a sense, turns the non-zero-sum reality of how social institutions both enable and limit into an artificial zero-sum fabrication in which social institutions only limit. To put it simply, it turns the word (and concept) into a far blunter instrument, with no corresponding gain in conceptual power.
That’s why I called it a *useful* fiction.
This is the kind of crap that makes you a pariah in my book. The term “socialism” has become a pejorative, and using it to refer to, and debunk, ideas I’ve expressed that have absolutely no connnection whatsoever to socialism is just plain annoying. Actually, the concept of “natural rights” underwrites socialism as much as it does liberalism, so my arguments are equally anathema to idealogues from both camps. In fact, socialism takes natural rights one step further, purporting to defend economic as well as political natural rights.
America was more than a country to me – it was a dream! Now that dream lies shattered. America was murdered (in bold no less) and it died while we cheered.
LOL! I’m not sure whether to give you an Oscar or laugh you out of the room.
A little bit of expressive excess isn’t going to hurt anyone. Harmless folly should be lovingly tolerated (no offense, Rio). After all, each and every one of us is a work in progress.
you’ll see that that jack-ass took the zen right out of me. Oh well, I tried….
Just please tell me you are not a real, live state legislator.
the most successful interrogators in modern history have used a completely different strategy: “Befriend” the prisoner and break down their silence with kindness. If the primary goal of our responses to threats to our security were reducing those threats and increasing our security rather than satisfying our lust for revenge, we would do what works rather than what appeals to our rage. Alas, the “American personality” too closely resembles that of those who attacked us, and as such, we are more inclined to feed the viscious cycle of violence than to interrupt it and diffuse it.
…and never was. It’s about instilling fear in the populace. Welcome to The Police State!
“Do it to Julia! Do it to Julia!”
— Winston Smith
“I sold you, you sold me, under the spreading chestnut tree.”
He was actually a photographer, but since he grew up in a German-American household, he was put to work as an interrogator, too.
He told me in great detail how he would use ciagrettes and candy to win the German POW’s over. He thought our occupation in Iraq and how we interrogate was criminal and ineffective.
BTW, this man recorded a part of D-Day. When he was showing me his photographs once, tears fell from his face. “Why, Paul, why?” Sixty years hadn’t erased his PTSD.
The sadists are now our ethicists! And the masochistic brown-nosing YR’s are peeing their pants in joy.
“Both former mayor Rudy Giuliani and Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) suggested they would support using the [waterboarding] technique”
Horrifying.
“The audience applauded loudly after both statements.”
Even more horrifying.
He sounded a lot more “Presidential” than the last debate. Ther old “9-11 Rudy” came through. Paul and Romney had the best presentations for fiscal conservatives and small government types. Ron Paul never had a shot, but if he did he shot himself in the foot last night with the base I would imagine. He gets points for straight shooting and balls though. Huckabee had the best line of the evening as far as laughs go, with Tancredo a close second. McCain held his spot. The rest I can’t remember so they aren’t raising themselves into second tier status, IMHO.
Who’s actually watching them besides the candidates’ families, campaign managers and a few political junkies?
But not in terms of winning over voters, rather in the analysis of winners/losers by the media. Having the media declare you a winner will give your campaigning and fund raising momentum for a while. So, while I agree that there next to zero votes available to sway, there is significant value to be had by doing well.
It serves Fred Thompson, who gets to keep his mouth shut while these guys say dumb things that get analyzed to death.
Townhall.com.
What is up with that stupid little video he did trying to slam Michael Moore?
I find it remarkable that we would do business with China, but continue imposing an embargo on Cuba. As if China is somehow lily-white….
Where he violates US law by possessing a Cuban cigar.
Rob Paul almost got it right….Osuma Ben Laden was pissed that American military was stationed on the Arabian Pennisula…home of Mecca…that was one of the reasons he gave for 9/11….NOTE: after the invasion of Iraq, we got ALL our military the hell out off the Arabian Pennisula…..did terrorism work? You are damm right it did.
When Paul talkes about “Blowback”…he is right on target….Rudy’s “they hate us because we are free”…is crap. Real crap. Either the man is so egotisical that he can not imagine that other people are entitled to feelings and perspective (here is where his treatment of his family is significant) or else he is a selfish manipulator, who knows exactly what the rationale was for 9/11 and the history of our involvment in the Near East…and choses to ignore it because of his contempt for his ignorant audience. He is a dangerous man. He is very close to being president.
The point that McCain needs to keep making is that when you torture people, they will tell you anything they think you want to hear….not necessarily the truth…
Just two days after several Republican presidential hopefuls seemed almost desperate to brag about their appreciation for torture – as Slate’s John Dickerson put it, “Some candidates appeared ready to do the torturing themselves” – an important WaPo op-ed tries to set the record straight.
Charles C. Krulak, commandant of the Marine Corps from 1995 to 1999, and Joseph P. Hoar, commander in chief of U.S. Central Command from 1991 to 1994, explained how fear can drive Americans to tolerate the intolerable – whether that be internment during World War II, McCarthyism, or more recently, torture.
Donald Rumsfeld once wondered aloud whether we were creating more terrorists than we were killing. In counterinsurgency doctrine, that is precisely the right question. Victory in this kind of war comes when the enemy loses legitimacy in the society from which it seeks recruits and thus loses its “recuperative power.”
The torture methods that Tenet defends have nurtured the recuperative power of the enemy. This war will be won or lost not on the battlefield but in the minds of potential supporters who have not yet thrown in their lot with the enemy. If we forfeit our values by signaling that they are negotiable in situations of grave or imminent danger, we drive those undecideds into the arms of the enemy. This way lies defeat, and we are well down the road to it.
Josh Marshall adds, “The legacy of this administration is frightening to behold, its philosophy of force and violence, its lawlessness.”
…….
Are you on the side of civilization, law humanity and decency……or not?
Comments?