Posted on 06/03/2006 5:50:22 PM PDT by quidnunc
"This is not America." Those words were President George W Bush’s attempt to explain the horrors of Abu Ghraib prison on the Arabic-language network Alhurra in 2004. He spoke the words as if they were an empirical matter, but a cognitive dissonance could be sensed through them.
If the men and women who tortured and abused and murdered at Abu Ghraib did not represent America, what did they represent? They wore the uniforms of the United States military. They were under the command of the American military. In the grotesque, grinning photographs they clearly seemed to believe that what they were doing was routine and approved.
And we now know from the official record that Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, had personally authorised the use of unmuzzled dogs to terrify detainees long before Abu Ghraib occurred, exactly as we saw in those photos. Does the secretary of defence not represent America?
Almost two years after the torture story broke Congress finally roused itself and passed an amendment to a defence appropriations bill by John McCain that forbade the use of any "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" of detainees by any American official anywhere in the world. It was passed by veto-proof margins and Bush signed it. But he appended a "signing statement" insisting that, as commander-in-chief, he retained the right to order torture if he saw fit.
And so on May 18 the nominee for CIA director, Michael Hayden, was asked directly by Senator Dianne Feinstein whether he regarded "waterboarding" as a legitimate interrogation technique. Hayden replied: "Let me defer that to closed session, and I would be happy to discuss it in some detail."
Huh? Why a closed session? Isn’t the law crystal clear? Isn’t strapping a person to a board, tilting him so that his head is below his feet, and pouring water through a cloth into his mouth to simulate drowning a form of "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment? And isn’t that illegal? In America? Or is that not America either?
-snip-
Another queer pretend conservative showing his/her/its true nature.
I don't think Andrew's been on the rez for a long while.
Andrew Sullivan: One of the leading "neoconservatives" who hysterically pushed us into the Iraq War and now have the baldfaced nerve to criticize tactics and by implication, the best men and women we put on the battlefield in Iraq.
Hard to even feel sorry for this pervert anymore.
He has been strongly anti-Bush and anti-Iraq ever since Bush first came out in favor of the constitutional amendment defining marriage.
Anti Gay Twit Sarcasm Torpedo ARMED. FIRE!!
By all accounts, that's nothing compared to what goes on among "consenting adults" in gay bathhouses and elsewhere, eh, Andy?
Why don't you pick a fight with Harvard's Alan Dershowitz who once agreed torture would be justifiable to prevent another terrorist attack...He's a liberal, just like you.
Nice try, though.
Dude, where you been? IIRC Andrew jumped the shark a long time ago.
NO ONE was tortured and abused unless you count those who had their heads cut off by those murdering scum who are the enemy! This just infuriates me!
Sullivan's allegance was always to the queer agenda above all else.
Oh, dear; not Andrew Sullivan's whining again. His rants are a form of torture, and he's less of a conservative than my cat.
Yes, this has more to do with Andy's loins than with his principles.
Andrew Sullivan falls in this catagory.
Actually no, it isn't. No actual physical harm is done.
Now taking a blowtorch and a pair of pliers to the genitalia of captured 'insurgents' might be considered cruel by some. Put me on the jury and I'll let the Intel weenies walk on that one every time.
L
I don't think it was a shark he jumped.
Anyone taking issue with what he said, rather than ad hominem drive-bys?
Let's look at this for a moment... if we can do these things to unconvicted detainees, then why can't we do them to convicted felons? Why aren't we waterboarding convicted felons?
Because of legal decisions... so that leads to... is America a nation ruled by law anymore?
Andy has obviously been listening to too many Neil Young albums and listening to tapes of Hanoi Boi's campaign speeches. He was for the war on terrorism before he was against it. Shut up Andy. Just shut up and let the adults do what has to be done. It's a dirty job but someone has to do it.
Yeah, it didn't take long for him to be 100% anti-Bush after the gay marriage issue.
Andrew has never been a real conservative. He is the most vile, hate-filled writer of today. He constantly whines about everyone and everything. Why anyone would bother to read his garbage is beyond me.
I doubt Sullivan was ever a conservative.
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