The Senate Report onThe CIA

[AGBF]

I just spent a few minutes reading several pieces in, "The New York Times" about the Senate report about the CIA's torture of captives, one made possible by Senator Dianne Feinstein. I had read about it yesterday, too, but just couldn't really grapple with it. I still cannot. I felt my blood pressure rising. I knew I had to stop reading. I really didn't want to make myself sick, and I knew it would be I who would be making myself sick if I kept up the behavior. I just couldn't keep going back to that subject over which I had no control.

I guess I don't have much to say right now except that I wanted to make sure that we opened up this topic here.

Deb/AGBF

 

[movie zombie]

the idea that this was merely an unfortunate "incident" not to be repeated denies the fact that international and/or US law has been broken and that those that ordered and condoned the practice must be prosecuted if this country is to maintain any sort of moral authority.

 

[AGBF]

the idea that this was merely an unfortunate "incident" not to be repeated denies the fact that international and/or US law has been broken and that those that ordered and condoned the practice must be prosecuted if this country is to maintain any sort of moral authority.

I am not sure where you have gotten the idea that the majority of people in this country or its government plan not to repeat this behavior or repudiate it. I see about an equal split for and against the torture, actually. Dick Cheney is defending it. President Obama refused and refuses to repudiate it. He is condoning it. Practically the only Senator against torture is John McCain.

 

[movie zombie]

deb, I stated my opinion.
why you would think otherwise I do not understand.

the president has implied it is contrary to our values and he will take steps to make sure it won't be repeated.
my opinion is that unless those responsible are prosecuted it will continue just further under the radar.

imo, the admission of guilt opens the door for prosecution which i'm sure will never happen in this country but may happen in Europe. i'm sure Cheney et al have no plans to travel to Italy and/or Spain, for example..........which do have a history of prosecuting such crimes committed in their own and/or other countries.

we are either a nation of laws or we are not.
at this point i'm not sure we remain a nation of laws.
again, merely my opinion.

 

[AGBF]

Misunderstanding here, MZ. I knew you were voicing your opinion, but I thought the opinion you were voicing was that all Americans felt as you did. Here is where the problem lay:

When you wrote,
"the idea that this was merely an unfortunate 'incident' not to be repeated denies the fact that international and/or US law has been broken (etc.)"
I thought you meant that the idea was held by the American people, that they were already on board with repudiating torture. I only wish.


Deb

 

[movie zombie]

I could only wish the same, deb. sigh.

 

[Dancing Fire]

Senator Dianne Feinstein =

 

[ksinger]

I've waited so long to post anything on this topic because, quite frankly, it depresses me beyond measure. This is such a horrible stain on this country. I was appalled by what we were doing when we all heard about it back in the Bush years, and I worried greatly that Obama, for all his promise, would not take steps to end it. (I pretty much knew that the Patriot Act, if not allowed to run out, would never go away. Meaning I had no faith in Congress to do anything "right") He lived down to my fears, alas. Believe it or not, given my penchant for giving great credence to the dark side of human nature, I am NOT at all happy when I'm right. I hate it actually.

I honestly believe this could not have happened on this scale had the WWII generation not been nearly gone, and the Vietnam chickenhawks not been in power. It bodes very ill for the next generation of politicians in this country, regardless of party, who have grown up in the era of unfettered black ops and secret torture facilities as a NORM. And what can one even begin to say about doctors who not only did not object, but participated actively and even led the way. For money. Very little in the news has the power to make my gorge rise, but this entire situation has done it.

Dick Cheney's dark victory: Torture and the demise of American democracy
http://www.salon.com/2014/12/13/dick_cheneys_dark_victory_torture_and_the_demise_of_american_democracy/

Do No Harm: When Doctors Torture
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/12/do-no-harm-when-doctors-torture/383677/

And yes, I too have heard barely a peep being outraged at it. Not in real life, not on FB (except for my posts, which no one reads, or that they staunchly ignore, which is probably good), and not outside of a few articles like I just linked. It's like people are numb, or don't know, or don't care to contemplate what we've done. I guess it's easier to continue to beat our collective chests and be bellicose about how marvelous and exceptional this country is.

 

[movie zombie]

no, my dear, it is just easier to go shopping........
that is the conclusion I've come to.
the working poor are struggling to put a roof over their heads and food on the table.
the middle class goes shopping.
and the rich, frankly, just don't give a damn as long as they can continue unfettered in their lifestyle.
sort of sad to be this jaded at this time of the year but when one has the problems this family has had do you really take the time to think about torture?
http://news.yahoo.com/new-hope-for-motel-kids-050815654.html
my purpose in posting the link is also to remind myself that there are some good people out there.......

 

[ksinger]

Of course for all my wailing and gnashing at the politicians and the president(s), the fact is, THIS IS the state of America right now. This IS who we truly are. In light of this, it should surprise no one then, the increasingly callous policies directed at our own. WE are doing this to US. It also explains why no one is talking much about this: half of us just don't even give a damn.

It is to weep...

Half of Americans are cool with CIA torture techniques
A new Pew Research Center poll finds that Americans are not as outraged as you may have thought
http://www.salon.com/2014/12/16/half_of_americans_are_cool_with_cia_torture_techniques/

 

[AGBF]

There is still one good Republican on torture: John McCain. From, "John McCain The Anti-Cheney on Torture" (in "The New York Times") is this excerpt:

"Last Friday, after the publication of the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s history of torture and deceit post-9/11, Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who was tortured as a prisoner in North Vietnam, appeared on the Charlie Rose show.

Watching was like taking an anti-Cheney pill. His arguments, and his principles were the polar opposite of Mr. Cheney’s, and also had the benefit of being rooted not only in American values, but also in the truth."

Link...http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/12/16/john-mccain-the-anti-cheney-on-torture/?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3As%2C{%221%22%3A%22RI%3A9%22}&_r=0

 

[ksinger]

Sorry, but I've got to link this one too. It is a piece by Patrick Smith, author of “Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century.”, which I have read. The book is a series of essays that read like the high-minded musings of a college professor, worth the read for certain, but a plough. However, the pieces he writes for online publication are biting and in the absolute NOW. The strain that runs through both that book and this (and other) pieces, is, whence the myth of American exceptionalism now? He believes it needs to die forthwith, replaced with real historical perspective and humility. And so do I. Neither one of us has a lot of hope that it will happen.

excerpted from the piece:
http://www.salon.com/2014/12/17/we_are_fing_sadists_we_are_not_decent_and_we_are_not_a_democracy/

"A nation guilty of torturing its prisoners, shooting minority children, fortifying its oligarchies and surveilling its population 24/7 and everywhere has nothing to teach the world about democracy, justice, civil rights or the other values we profess but do not any longer live by."

And experimentation. Don't forget human experimentation. They did that too....

http://www.thenation.com/article/193185/cia-didnt-just-torture-it-experimented-human-beings#

 

[AGBF]

Sorry, but I've got to link this one too.

"A nation guilty of torturing its prisoners, shooting minority children, fortifying its oligarchies and surveilling its population 24/7 and everywhere has nothing to teach the world about democracy, justice, civil rights or the other values we profess but do not any longer live by."

And experimentation. Don't forget human experimentation. They did that too....

Thanks, ksinger. I wonder if this is the time and place to confess that I just started teaching a class on citizenship at a minority run center for immigrants (many illegal although obviously not the ones in the citizenship class) on the West Side of Stamford, Connecticut and that I have to teach them the party line for the test or they will not pass? So far I have been only assisting in a class that has been running for many months and the students (all of whom are Hispanic) know enough English to read aloud, including dates, but they must memorize many facts about the flag and the the national anthem and even The Pledge of Allegiance. The current teacher, by a wild coincidence, happens to be the mother of a child who went through elementary school with my daughter in our nearby town (not Stamford). She is an attorney and a Democrat. She had college student helping her to teach earlier this year and she said she had to keep her from going off onto "PC topics". These people really have to learn the answers to pass the test and my co-leader has looked them up and has them all in front of her. She reads off all the answers that will be accepted as correct by the testers. She wants these people to pass. We also discuss things, and she shows pictures and maps, but if the discussion goes too far afield they will lose focus and not become US citizens. So... I find myself teaching about liberty and justice with a feeling of distaste about the United States. These innocent people stand up and recite the Pledge of Allegiance, after having spoken about respecting our flag, and I stand up with them, and I think...do I respect my government?

Deb/AGBF

 

[Karl_K]

do I respect my government?

There is so much corruption it is hard to say yes to that one.
But I still love my country and it is the best place on earth warts and all.

I haven't responded in this thread because I am not surprised it happened and is still happening today.
While we may disagree on exactly what is torture in some cases based on past conversations, we can agree they went way too far.

What will really be done about it?
Not much because it came from the top from both Bush and Obama.
Anyone who believes one of them is less guilty than the other is not facing reality.

 

[AGBF]

do I respect my government?

There is so much corruption it is hard to say yes to that one.
But I still love my country and it is the best place on earth warts and all.

I haven't responded in this thread because I am not surprised it happened and is still happening today.
While we may disagree on exactly what is torture in some cases based on past conversations, we can agree they went way too far.

What will really be done about it?
Not much because it came from the top from both Bush and Obama.
Anyone who believes one of them is less guilty than the other is not facing reality.

Obama is very much at fault on the torture issue. I am not about to quantify how much versus Bush. I'd be ready to have a war crimes trial for him, however.

I, also, love my country. Why else would I be teaching a citizenship class? I think it is the best hope for many immigrants.

Deb/AGBF

 

[ksinger]

"A nation guilty of torturing its prisoners, shooting minority children, fortifying its oligarchies and surveilling its population 24/7 and everywhere has nothing to teach the world about democracy, justice, civil rights or the other values we profess but do not any longer live by."

And not that this is new (to me at least. I do recall hearing such comparisons back in the Bush years), but here is a glaring example of that different moral yardstick being applied depending: When it was the Japanese doing it to OUR guys, it was a war crime worthy of prosecution, and we did. Now that it's US doing it, it is simply one of those things we MUST do and is therefore OK and moral, because no one who is doing evil, wants to face it at the time they are doing it.

We are so hypocritical it boggles the mind. Looks like we got tired of our own moral high horse and beat it to death.

New Documents Show the US Called Waterboarding Torture During World War II
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/12/waterboarding-torture-japan-world-war-ii


And linked without comment, (although such restraint is paining me mightily), a pro and con.

No, American Christians Should Not Support Torture
http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/12/17/3604860/christians-shouldnt-torture/

and...

Yes, Christians Can Support Torture
http://thefederalist.com/2014/12/17/yes-christians-can-support-torture/

 

[AGBF]

This is an argument for bringing back the rule of law to the United States.

"Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses" by the Editorial Board of "The New York Times"...http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/22/opinion/prosecute-torturers-and-their-bosses.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Aw%2C{%221%22%3A%22RI%3A8%22}&_r=0

Deb/AGBF

 

[ksinger]

This is an argument for bringing back the rule of law to the United States.

"Prosecute Torturers and Their Bosses" by the Editorial Board of "The New York Times"...http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/22/opinion/prosecute-torturers-and-their-bosses.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Aw%2C{%221%22%3A%22RI%3A8%22}&_r=0

Deb/AGBF

And here is a good - and likely correct ( it certainly rings true to me ) - explanation for why it such an investigation and the desired subsequent prosecutions, will most likely never happen.

My suspicion has long been that we have past some point of no return in this regard. That we lack the will to stop this type of thing. The American people are far to fractured ideologically, to exert the pressure necessary to change any of our current trajectory. The ones who agree that we are pretty much doomed, are much more deeply informed than I am about just how bad things really are.

Vote all you want. The secret government won’t change.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/10/18/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-change/jVSkXrENQlu8vNcBfMn9sL/story.html

 

[AGBF]

Vote all you want. The secret government won’t change.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/10/18/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-change/jVSkXrENQlu8vNcBfMn9sL/story.html

I read the article and yet I feel there is something missing in the author's take on the subject. And in Walter Bagehot's take on the situation in Great Britain. Neither is really asking the all important question cui bono? The British Prime Minister; cabinet; and House of Commons did not act for themselves, after all. They acted for the interests of certain elements of British society. It is my belief that if we identified the ones who benefited from the policies enacted (presuming that Mr. Bagehot was correct in his theory), we would find the true source of power in Great Britain.

Similarly, if there is a shadow government working behind the scenes in the United States, I do not believe it is on auto-pilot (as John Kerry apparently implied) due to some "innocent" malfunction that kept the bureaucracy churning. I believe that there is a segment of the society-and the economy-that is being served by the shadow government. For example, we have discussed in this forum who the Supreme Court has favored recently: corporations over people. Cui bono? Or as the Watergate reporters were told by Deep Throat: follow the money.

Deb/AGBF

 

[ksinger]

Vote all you want. The secret government won’t change.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/10/18/vote-all-you-want-the-secret-government-won-change/jVSkXrENQlu8vNcBfMn9sL/story.html

I read the article and yet I feel there is something missing in the author's take on the subject. And in Walter Bagehot's take on the situation in Great Britain. Neither is really asking the all important question cui bono? The British Prime Minister; cabinet; and House of Commons did not act for themselves, after all. They acted for the interests of certain elements of British society. It is my belief that if we identified the ones who benefited from the policies enacted (presuming that Mr. Bagehot was correct in his theory), we would find the true source of power in Great Britain.

Similarly, if there is a shadow government working behind the scenes in the United States, I do not believe it is on auto-pilot (as John Kerry apparently implied) due to some "innocent" malfunction that kept the bureaucracy churning. I believe that there is a segment of the society-and the economy-that is being served by the shadow government. For example, we have discussed in this forum who the Supreme Court has favored recently: corporations over people. Cui bono? Or as the Watergate reporters were told by Deep Throat: follow the money.

Deb/AGBF

Maybe neither asks the question because it is essentially irrelevant. Or because the answer to the question is so glaringly obvious in these times of corporations-as-people, increasing concentration of wealth, and increasing pollution of the electoral process by unfettered attempts to buy influence, that it doesn't warrant wasting keystrokes on. After all, money is just the most current tool and stand-in for gaining the most desirable coin of any culture in any era: POWER.

So which would be scarier? To finally find that it really IS about money and that all is being controlled by a cabal of gleefully hand-wringing plutocrats? Or that it is simply the inevitable result of a massive bureaucracy whose institutional memory and culture effectively ensure policy continuity from admin to admin?

To my mind, it is more likely a combination of the two, that the "money" has simply realized that both the shadow government (made up of people with particular world views and threat-perception levels - carefully crafted and stoked by decades of messaging) and the population outside that government, are quite easy to manipulate, given the amount of money they casually bring to bear on those groups. Money has always been a very effective tool for any divide and conquer strategy, after all. So constantly tell the American people that government is the problem, and thus help them forget that some flavor of "WE" IS the government, and stoke the need for meaning and status and power of those in government and convince them that only THEY have a good bead on the situation. Any shadow government bureaucrats benefit with money and status and power (especially power), and the plutocrats benefit also with no one to fetter their money or challenge their insulation. You might consider for a moment too, the idea that the government (as in those in high position in the so-called shadow government), probably have quite a few real ties to the monied classes, since the education and connections needed to get those positions are not easily available to the average person. So right there you have a near-perfect dovetailing of interests.

It's certainly a fun tangent to go on, but knowing a "prime cause" (or causes) of sorts, doesn't really change the fact that the solution - whether that includes ending policies that favor money/corporations, or whether it means the people demanding that that that other group of people, Congress, de-fund the shadow bureaucracy - will take concerted and sustained effort on the part of a hefty majority of the American people, who would first have to agree that any of the aforementioned even exist and are a problem. Since most are merely trying to stay above water, and the rest are aspiring to BE the next plutocrat or near-plutocrat, I'm thinking that the words "concerted" and "sustained" don't really apply when talking about American society anymore. According to a review (by Mickey Edwards no less. Ain't life weird?) of the book by the author interviewed in the piece I linked,
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2014/10/18/review-national-security-and-double-government-michael-glennon/tUhBBdSj8s0WW1HoWUf20M/story.html

"Nor is he glib with proposed solutions: to adequately respond to the threats posed by a below-the-radar second government will require “a general public possessed of civic virtue,” which prompts Glennon to cite retired Supreme Court justice David Souter’s bemoaning of a “pervasive civic ignorance.” Not all of the problem can be laid at Truman’s feet. And if we ourselves are part of the zeitgeist that allows invisible governments to flourish, repair will be difficult. As Glennon puts it, “the term Orwellian will have little meaning to a people who have never known anything different, who have scant knowledge of history, civics, or public affairs, and who in any event have never heard of George Orwell.”

This is no secret conspiracy nor a plot to deprive Americans of their civil liberties. It is the unintended consequence of a thoughtful attempt to head off the very threats that those attempts have inadvertently created."

 

[movie zombie]

sign.