Democrats push for torture inquiry
Democrats are seizing on a newly declassified report on harsh interrogations conducted by the military of terror suspects to push for a full inquiry of the Bush administration's use of what critics call torture.
The 232-page report released Tuesday by the Senate Armed Services Committee concluded that the military's use of interrogation tactics -- such as stripping detainees, placing them in stressful body positions, and depriving them of sleep -- were authorized at the top levels of the Bush administration, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
There's a world of debate opened up here: Should we use torture? What if the torture produced results? Does what really happened qualify as torture? That's not my issue here; that's a discussion to be tabled for later.
What I find intriguing is the calls, urgent and frequent, from our "friends" on the left side of the political aisle for prosecutions of Bush administration officials for acts related to this development:
UPDATE: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today also endorsed the establishment of a formal "truth commission" to investigate Bush administration anti-terrorism policies, including an examination of the Justice Department lawyers who wrote the memos justifying the interrogations, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
The release last week of the four Justice Department memos has re-energized the push for an investigation or possible prosecution. "Our members are upset about it," Pelosi said of Democrats.
Flash back with me to 1994, when Bill Clinton re-authorized the Office of the Independent Counsel, an office created ideally to investigate wrongdoing in the Executive Branch in the wake of the Watergate scandal and - prior to 1998 - most infamous for producing Lawrence Walsh and the Iran/Contra brouhaha investigating President Reagan and Vice President Bush. Clinton reauthorized the OIC that George HW Bush had let lapse in his waning days in office.
Yeah, the Democrats thought that the OIC was a swell and dandy idea - until Ken Starr came along.
Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it - does 0bama have the political will to subject himself and his retread Clinton administration to the possibility of prosecution down the road should the Republicans ever retake the Oval office? I doubt it - one need look no further than the Waco incident to realize that the Clintons don't want light shone on their administration. To say nothing of the travesty that was the "9/11 Commission" - Jamie Gorelick was *on* the panel, rather than subpeonaed to testify in front of it??
I don't see it happening. I don't think they've got the political will. But... Saw on the news this morning about 0bama's approval rating and the direction of the country. The news stated that 48% thought the US was headed in the right direction, and 44% thought it wasn't. The headline? A majority of Americans think the US is headed in the right direction. As long as 0bama has the media in his hip pocket, he'll continue to blunder along blindly, grandstanding for his netroots buddies and political hacks.
And we will all suffer for it...
That is all.
10 comments:
That's a plurality, not a majority. I wonder what his favorable rating is right now?
Boy you are an angry man! I think you'll be the first
I'll tell you what gave me the creeps about that bit you quoted, Jay: the Bitch Princess's reference to a "truth commission." A formal inquiry, whether by a court or some other agency, is supposed to be a search for FACTS, not TRUTH. Truth is subjective; facts are not. When the Bitch Princess says "truth" instead of "facts," it signals she already knows what she wants the answers to be, and the commission's job will be to build an argument that supports those answers, regardless of the actual facts of the matter.
TOTWTYTR,
The same report pegged him at something like 62% approval rating.
However, when they call 48-44 a "majority", who knows?
Anon,
Angry? You have no fucking idea.
Glad to see I'm #1, though.
wolfwalker,
Yeah, that's pretty much why I highlighted that bit. "Searching for Truth" just has that Soviet-era chill to it, no?
Oops, shoulda read the whole post.
Saw on the news this morning about 0bama's approval rating and the direction of the country. The news stated that 48% thought the US was headed in the right direction, and 44% thought it wasn't.I saw that too. After years an' years of reading Powerline and Hot Air, I never trust polls anymore, so I went digging and found the complete details on this one (beware -- PDF link). Like virtually all mass-media-run polls these days, it was stacked in the Pinhead's favor. Jump down to the question on party identification, and you find that half the poll sample was either Democrat or "independent - lean Democrat." By contrast, "Republican" and "lean Republican" made up 27% of the sample. Sorry, no way that D's outnumber R's by that many points. The poll sample was distorted, so the result is worthless.
...grandstanding for his netroots buddies and political hacks and dictators from countries that are openly working against the USA and the values and economic system (capitalism, at least for a bit longer) that she stands for. There fixed it for you.
I assume that if 48% approve of the direction the country is headed and that 44% do not, that there another 8% who don't know, don't care or just don't give a good flyin' foxtrot. The last time I checked (and, as my wife reminds me all the time, I have two degrees) 48% is NOT a majority. And I bet if you look at the MARGIN OF ERROR of the survey, the results will show a near tie!
"The AP-GfK Poll was conducted April 16-20 by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Media. It involved telephone interviews on landline and cell phones with 1,000 adults nationwide. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points."
That changes the results from 48/44 to 45/47. I call BS on the poll.
Definitely beware what you wish for, Pelosi.
I read elsewhere that she was on one of the select committees overseeing the interrogation methods, and basically approved of them at the time.
Why not the big stink then?
Yeah, lets have those "commissions"! And lets go back to Oh, say... LBJ and start forward from there... And don't forget Clinton, who also authorized it. F**King idjits... SO even though Pelosi and others are parties to the approval, THEY cannot be tried/sued etc.
I was waterboarded 4 times as part of my training in the 70's- was it fun? Hell no, but I survived... Torture my ass!!!
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