Take it like men, you bloodthirsty bastards.

[elfs]

More from the torture does not work file:

During the transition period, unknown to the public, Obama's legal, intelligence, and national-security advisers visited Langley for two long sessions with current and former intelligence-community members. They debated whether a ban on brutal interrogation practices would hurt their ability to gather intelligence, and the advisers asked the intelligence veterans to prepare a cost-benefit analysis. The conclusions may surprise defenders of harsh interrogation tactics. "There was unanimity among Obama's expert advisers," Craig said, "that to change the practices would not in any material way affect the collection of intelligence."

Everyone got that? The CIA agents working in the field during the Bush administration flat out said that the interrogation techniques approved by Bush and Cheney, and wholeheartedly embraced by keyboard commandos like Rush, Hannity, Bill Kristol, and the entire gamut of the Free Republic, did not improve the quality of intelligence gathering at all. That's why Obama's executive orders were so sweeping: they changed nothing in terms of America's safety and security.

And what kinds of torture are we talking about? Lieutenant Colonel Darrel Vandeveld, of the Reserve JAG Corps, wrote of the case he was assigned to prosecute:

Military records show that Mohammed Jawad was subjected to the "frequent flyer" program from May 7 to May 20, 2004. Over that fourteen-day period, Mr Jawad was forcibly moved from cell to cell 112 times, on an average of about once every three hours, and prevented from sleeping. Mr. Jawad's medical records indicate that significant health effects he suffered during this time include blood in his urine, bodily pain, and a weight loss of 10% from April 2004 to May 2004. ... The statement -- essentially a recitation of Mr. Jawad's account -- indicated that Mr. Jawad had experienced extensive abuse while at Bagram prison from December 18, 2002 to early February 2003. This abuse included the slapping of Mr. Jawad across the face while Mr. Jawad's head was covered with a hood, as well as Mr. Jawad's having been shoved down a stairwell while both hooded and shackled.

Did you ever get the feeling that George Bush was bullied as a young child and that the past eight years have been little more than him trying to prove how tough he really is?

The vicious, bloodthirsty bastard who said "We need these techniques" were simply wrong. And now we have to pay the price of six years of wrong-headedness.

Comments

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

I have an idea, and that idea is this:

"You have, for your sins, and the fact that the record is sketchy concerning them, earned yourself a one-way ticket out of the country. You can live anywhere you like - so long as it isn't the United States. And so long as you live quietly. If it *ever* reaches our ears that you're Up To Something, *anything*, you will die. Quickly and quietly."

And that idea should be posed to *both* the folks for whom we have no records at GitMo... and to their ultimate jailers: Bush, Cheyney, et al. Just Get. Out.

Comments? No, it's not perfect justice. But what is? And I think living without the America they tried to ruin (and damn near succeeded) is proper karma.

[shunra.livejournal.com]

Nah, justice has to be seen.

We can no more skip our process than they could.

[mikstera.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Visible Justice... for us, today, and as a warning to the next batch of PNAC devotees, or their equivalent.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Star chambers don't instill respect for the rule of law. I don't want people to be afraid. I want them to know justice.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Point.

What scares me is what the Senate will do.

Aha. Got a better idea. Let the UN do it. oooh, wouldn't that be karma... try him in the Hague, by their rules, just like he yanked folks off their own soil and tried them by his...

Then if the Senate wants to get uppity, Obama can come down on them without them having recourse to the "partisan" argument.

[gromm.livejournal.com]

Did you ever get the feeling that George Bush was bullied as a young child

No, I always thought that Bush, Cheney, Rush, Hannity, and the entire gamut of the Free Republic were bullies since early childhood, and have been working doggedly ever since to prove how tough they really are, so that they can impress the other bullies and make friends with them.

That's generally how that mindset works.