Comments on: Pentagon Releases Memo On Harsh Tactics

Declassified 2003 Memo Says Bush's Wartime Authority Trumps International Ban On Torture

[missingamerica]

B.J. Lawson for the House of Representatives....

Posted by Prinzowhales at 12:34 PM : Apr 02, 2008

Lawson, eh? Didn''t even know he was running, what with BJ''s wife taking up all the headlines...

[neenga]

Prinzowhales, I travel the world and talk to many about American''s politics, situation, etc. Your sniper-ish diatribe indicates how little you know about American people. Granted, America is far from perfect; you live in the UK, which is also far from perfect. Shut up.

[prinzowhales]

Aaron Russo was a good man...He would have made an excellent president...But, my fellow, good and appropriate Americans tell me, almost to a man, that I am "wasting" my vote by trying to pick the best candidate as opposed to selecting from the slops one of the Administration candidates--the lesser of two evils. Good and appropriate and accepting Americans have given us eight years of Bush and the mad choice of Obama, Clinton and McCane this year...

[prinzowhales]

Jesse Ventura just reported that he contracted with MSNBC and the contract prohibited him from commenting on any other network--effectively silencing him... they never put him on the air!! Censorship American Corporatist style!!

kissamaarse--If you choose the lesser of two evils, you get evil. In 2004, we had the choice of Bush who had already launched a war based on lies supported by Kerry who wanted more troops to wage this immoral undertaking. Quite rightly, I voted Third Party...for one of the better candidates...I currently live in North Carolina and will be supporting B.J. Lawson for the House of Representatives....and a Third Party candidate for President...perhaps, Nader again, perhaps the Libertarian candidate.

[finewoven]

The authority of the Great Emperor is ABSOLUTE (not even the Pope can say that!) and if you want to keep your head(!!!), you had better do what the Great Emperor says, right or wrong!!!!
Posted by walt1944 at 12:26 PM : Apr 02, 2008

If you get a chance, watch the movie "To Kill a King." It''s about King Charles I of England in the 1650s, and how he ignored the Magna Carta and essentially pillaged his own people. He was put to death--without trial, and well . . . you can see how history learned the lesson. He claimed divine authority for his activities, that no one should question him.

[finewoven]

I, too, am eager to get home, even if from a 2 - 3 week trip. However, I consider the corporate media in America to be more entertainment, opinion, and more driven by partisan nonsense than by fact.
Posted by kissamaarse at 12:01 PM : Apr 02, 2008

I agree with this, but isn''t this also the point of it all. Opinions are like a*sholes, everyone''s got one. Not everyone has to act like an a*shole when they present they views. Case in point, on the liberal front who wants to listen to Howard Stern--except for narcissistic humor. And on the conservative front, the commentators are too many to cover--but they aren''t always presenting facts. I don''t think they even admit when they''ve been lied to, but instead rationalize it.

I too read several different types of newspapers and magazines, from both sides of the aisle. It''s important to me to understand both viewpoints.

[walt1944-2009]

The military has released a memo stating that it has the authority to use "harsh" interrogation tactics from the Great Emperor Bush II himself and that the Great Emperor''s authority is "HIGHER" than any international authority on the matter!!!!!

This, of course, is something that the Nazis in Germany would have said to justify the death camps and the killing of POWs. The authority of the Great Emperor is ABSOLUTE (not even the Pope can say that!) and if you want to keep your head(!!!), you had better do what the Great Emperor says, right or wrong!!!!

Is it any wonder why the Great Emperor Bush II is "persona non grata" in Europe, and why there are European warrants out for ex-members of his neocon Fascist Nazi court, like Donald "Rummy" Rumsfeld", for crimes against humanity?????

SIG HEIL, BUSH!!!!
sig heil, (more of the same) McCain????

[kissamaarse]

Prinzowhales:
Where do you live? Is it really so much better? Have you lived in America in order to compare? Well, I think your last post deals with issues of honesty. I read once that 20% of people are dishonest, 20% are totally honest, and the other 60% are situationally honest or dishonest. Choosing between the lessor of two evils is something to grapple with.

[prinzowhales]

fyi...Jesse Ventura is on infowars.com and at genesis communications network on the Alex Jones Show...He has a new book out...DON''T START THE REVOLUTION WITHOUT ME.

[kissamaarse]

finewoven:
I, too, am eager to get home, even if from a 2 - 3 week trip. However, I consider the corporate media in America to be more entertainment, opinion, and more driven by partisan nonsense than by fact. That is why I mention BBC, for example. Yes, BBC is paid for by the television licenses that all Brits must pay, but I would rather hear fact-based news than partisan parsing. Here at home I read many different news media, and pay little attention to television news, unless I am seeking entertainment.

[finewoven]

To watch BBC, for example, as opposed to a "news" media like Fox, is a real eye-opener for many. And I suppose many choose to close their eyes. So how do we change that here in America?
Posted by kissamaarse at 11:41 AM : Apr 02, 2008

I know your point was directed to Prinzowhales; but I too have traveled the world and talked to several people in regard to American values. Consider the BBC, which has barely any advertising, and is pretty much a monopoly on broadcasting--the view presented are not diverse. In fact, diversity is a hardship to many people outside America because they have so much invested in their nationalism. Consider France, or Germany, how they despise American values. And the middle east is a pronounced hater of Western ideals.

Each time I travel abroad, I cannot wait to get back to my home country where the diversity is a value that helps people grow. I thought the Bush Administration was making strides in diversity too, but it turned out to be cronyism. That''s where we fall short.

[prinzowhales]

kissamaarse--A beginning would be to never accept the lesser of two evils as being anything but evil, always call a spade, a spade and never put lip stick on a pig and imagine that it is anything other than a pig.

[prinzowhales]

Hannah Arrendt did not have Americans in mind when she wrote of the "banality of evil" and the "evil of banality" to describe the everyday, calm, bureaucratic ease with which the Nazi scribblers approved and conducted the ''business'' of the camps and machinery of death...of people like Eichmann and others who go to work...enjoy lunch at a nice restaurant and go about running things in nice, neat middle class surroundings where the screams and blood of their victims and the anguish of their families never intrude or spoil the taste of the pastrami on rye and nice, crisp little salat...I wonder who Hannah Arrendt would be thinking about today when she considered the banality of evil...and the evil of banality.

[kissamaarse]

Prinzowhales:
Yes, all those conditions exist, and many people do not have the capacity, or the desire, apparently, to scratch through the superficiality. I have lived abroad on a number of occasions, and it really does bother me that foreigners seem far more aware of what happens in America than many Americans do, indeed even the school children. To watch BBC, for example, as opposed to a "news" media like Fox, is a real eye-opener for many. And I suppose many choose to close their eyes. So how do we change that here in America?

[prinzowhales]

Americans can hide their heads in the sand...better to have their kids irreparably damaged by thimerasol than to make a scene...better to have them placed in the public propaganda prisons known as public schools to learn "acceptance" rather than "discernment"... better to do what your neighbor is doing...

American individualism? If they gathered in Central Park wearing Mao pajamas and performed in sync exercises, they could not be conforming to the mores of this sick-arsed society...a sick-arsed society that accepts rampant criminality...that accepts a Regime that imports dangerous narcotics...that wages wars against innocents and tortures them...with the approval of memo scribblers in Washington and paid for with their taxes...a sick-arsed society that gives a tinker''s d*amn about Brittainy Spears more than they do about what their children are learning... how they are behaving....why we have more prisoners than country''s that dwarf us in population...why the economy is going to ''ell...why cancer rates increase to the point where one-in-two Americans will succumb to this disease after a forty year multi-billion dollar ''war'' on it. This is a sick society...and the renditions...the calm, calculating appropriate memos that legitimize torture and extend the power of the president beyond any Constitutional bounds are issued and rescinded without any action by a Congress of swine who are slopped at the same fascist troughs from which the current Regime feeds.

[finewoven]

these american liberals has a cozy asociation with terrorists THAT THEY CONSIDER THEM a brethrens...CLOSE ENOUGH TO FIGHT FOR THIER RIGHTS.
Posted by libsrweak at 10:45 AM : Apr 02, 2008

Personally, I''ve often viewed this the other way around. Whenever there needs to be a Republican push for legislation or something else involving Iraq, an Al Qaeda video pops up in the media as a scare tactic to get people rallied to the Republican views. It happens so often that there is a consistent correlation between terrorist''s threats and Conservative wrangling of issues. I sometimes wonder if the religious nature of the extremists of Islam is the brethen of the religious right in the GOP. Lord help us[sic].

[prinzowhales]

kissamaarse--I ammended my statement with "in large part"...I''ve talked to so many Americans who prefer ignorance on every issue from the Federal Reserve through the Income Tax to corporate mal- and mis-feasance that, of me, it is the electorate that is answerable for the sins of their elected leaders...
"Fool me once, shame on you...Fool me twice, shame on me..."...as Fearless Leader once tried to say....

[prinzowhales]

And, while Merck murders Americans by the tens of thousands, the CIA imports drugs on the very planes that are tied to the renditions! Two down in Mexico with tons of drugs on board!! Is anyone suggesting that perhaps, it is the Bush White House and the scum-sucking dogs that run the show in Washington that need the kind of treatment approved by their memo sribblers? If not, I am!

[kissamaarse]

Prinzowhales:
I agree with you about Merck and other large companies who put garbage into the market place simply to maximize profits at all costs, but your "arse-licking" comment is over the top. Yes, people are duped and they are dumbed-down, and our culture is one of hyper-consumerism, but why the degrading comment about all Americans?

[prinzowhales]

Was the torture harsh, dude?

"The Pentagon on Tuesday made public a now-defunct legal memo that approved the use of harsh interrogation techniques against terror suspects, saying that President Bush''s wartime authority trumps any international ban on torture."

It approved torture...you can rescind memos till ''ell freezes over, but, as the continued renditions prove, torture continues unabated...while the paper-pushers try to baffle us with BS about their memos.

Why aren''t they applying these techniques to the murdering terrorists at Merck, who knowingly exposed the users of Vioxx to death...sending tens othousands of them to a premature grave? Not one renditioned Big Pharma executive...And the hundreds of thousands of autistic children...lifes ruined by the senseless jabs by these heinous b*stards?!! Merck has done more damage to Americans than all of the CIA''s al Qaeda!!
Yet Americans...arse-licking appropriate dogs that they, in large part, are today...demand nothing but to hear who got voted off the island, out of the house, off the singing show or who made the final four.