Who doesn't love Ellen?

Oralloy replied to my post but deleted it. I've replied, and so I'll share. First of all Oralloys deleted post.



And my response.


Waterboarding is torture. Guatamamo Bay is not a POW camp it's a torture camp, or it was under George Bush.

The war in Iraq was illegal because there was no UN resolution. Don't you remember all the **** about freedom fries when you started bleating about not being able to get France on board?

I do, it was quite pathetic.

This is the first sentence of the Wikipedia page on Libyan intervention.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_Libya<br />

I've put the important bit in bold to help you out.

A war is illegal unless it's in response to an attack or has a UN resolution. The action in Libya had one, so it's legal. The war in Iraq didn't have one so it's illegal.

Do you see how it works? If it all still seems a bit complicated perhaps you could ask a grown up to help you.

Also it wasn't the EU in Libya it was NATO. They're not the same thing, only one is a military alliance.

does anyone else see the irony in the fact that a post about being kind to others - has turned into being mean.

Well it does give an opportunity for discussion of the grievances that the left has towards Bush. I think the end result of the conversation will be to establish that Bush should not be treated as a pariah.

A reply is still forthcoming. I deleted the first because I decided to modify my position slightly.

My new reply is pretty much ready to go, but I want to review some more articles about Obama's policies towards detaining probable terrorists without charges. I'd like to see if I can find the number of people who would still be so-detained if Obama had gotten his way. Of the 40 or so that Obama kept detained, "some" he would have liked to hand over to civilian courts for criminal trial, and "some" he planned to continue to keep detained without charges. I don't think I'll find hard numbers at this point, but we'll see.

Asshole...per blatham (and I agree)

I truly don't get this residual anger/hatred for the man. And everything I wrote about him from his announced run through to the end of his eight years in office was negative, often very negative, other than when he seemed to me to begin rejecting the two individuals who created most of the really ugly parts of his record - Rumsfeld and Cheney. That, I thought and said at the time, was honorable and his regrets seemed palpably sincere. He had come to recognize, it seemed to me, that he been steamrolled by others far more ambitious and radical than he himself was. I see him now, as I did before, as greatly out of his depth in that office. But the sort of vicious amorality of Rumsfeld and Cheney's crowd (Addington particularly) or Karl Rove was not a feature of W's personality.

Since leaving office, at least after an extended period of absence from the political world, he has behaved with grace (as did his father). I've seen nothing or near nothing negative coming from him other than when he (and his family) are referring to Trump. Cheney, by contrast, is still a lying, devious and malicious sack of crap no one ought to trust.

Can anyone imagine Trump, in the future, behaving with that sort of grace?

The dead don't get a vote.

What do you think the people who were killed in the 9/11 attacks would vote for?

Detaining probable terrorists without charges is an atrocity? Was it also an atrocity for Obama to detain probable terrorists without charges?

Toppling a horrible dictator and trying to set up a democracy is an atrocity? Was it also an atrocity for Obama and the EU to topple Kadaffy in Libya?

There was abusive treatment at Guantanamo, but no waterboarding happened there. The CIA conducted their waterboarding in the EU at an old abandoned Warsaw Pact airbase. Last I heard they hadn't revealed which EU country it was. But it's not an issue that I follow closely, so I could have missed the announcement.

Anyway, torturing suspected terrorists (at a time when we all had grave fears of devastating terrorist attacks) was regrettable, but it is hardly comparable to the deliberate murder of millions of innocent people by the likes of Hitler and Pol Pot.



That Security Council resolution only authorized protecting civilians from being massacred by Kadaffy. It did not in any way authorize a military campaign to overthrow Kadaffy.

Plus, wars happen without Security Council authorization all the time. Why does Iraq-2003 get singled out for special outrage?

You really don't have the courage of your convictions do you? That's two responses you've deleted now.

Let me make it plain. Torture is an atrocity, it doesn't matter if the prisoners are terrorists or not. Torture is wrong, and waterboarding is torture.

The Spanish Inquisition considered it torture, it was one of the most effective tortures they used.

Don't be silly. One message was deleted because I revised my thoughts on the matter, and wanted to take the time to craft an updated reply.

Revising a viewpoint upon reflection is something that thinking people do from time to time.

The other deletions did not involve changing any text, and the messages were reposted (or will be) as-is.


I agree that torture is an atrocity, but the circumstances do in fact matter. It is silly to treat torture in the aftermath of 9/11 (when we feared another huge attack) as being equivalent to the deliberate massacre of millions of innocent people.

Progressives are just naturally filled with hate.

That said, W does deserve scorn for his awful betrayal of Scooter Libby.

Mark Ruffalo: 'Kindness' Is Irrelevant Until Bush Is 'Brought To Justice'

When Ruffalo gives away his millions to progressive causes I will take him seriously

Brought to justice for violating what law?

The administration of George W. Bush asserted that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were isolated incidents and were not indicative of U.S. policy.[8][9] This assertion was disputed by humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch; these organizations stated that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were part of a wider pattern of torture and brutal treatment at American overseas detention centers, including those in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and at Guantanamo Bay.[9]

So, your complaint is the abusive treatment of suspected terrorists in the wake of the 9/11 attacks when we were in fear of another attack?

What would constitute justice in your view?

Why are you wasting your time on facts and figures?

Hysteria and delusion are all he deals in.

You cannot point out anything untrue in any of my posts.

You also cannot provide any examples of hysteria on my part.