Congressional Oversight of Executive Disappears (or almost)

georgeob1 wrote:

That's not true. I just don't make the categorical distinctions you make. I'll leave open the questoion of torture at the hands of this administration until the facts emerge. However I reject utterly the notion that we should focus on the allegations that have been made about the treatment of captives held by the U.S. without also considering the corresponding beheadings that have been practiced by our opponents,

Did you happen to notice that the beheadings did not begin until AFTER the torture at AbuGraib surfaced. They reacted to OUR barbarity, not the reverse. We started it, then we get all moral and beligerant when it catches up to us!! Too funny!

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Quote:

That's not true. I just don't make the categorical distinctions you make. I'll leave open the questoion of torture at the hands of this administration until the facts emerge. However I reject utterly the notion that we should focus on the allegations that have been made about the treatment of captives held by the U.S. without also considering the corresponding beheadings that have been practiced by our opponents,

Many facts emerged long ago george. Quite aside from all that future investigations will reveal (and it certainly won't be all because these guys protect themselves, and I have little confidence you'll agree with negative findings in any case) regarding who ordered what, one can simply concentrate on what happened in the Justice Department and run it against any code of ethics or morality.

What will be or ought to be the proper consequence of "considering the corresponding beheadings"? Would it change the moral calculus of pulling his fingernails out or shoving a knife into that Iraqi's eye? Cutting his nuts off? Killing his children in front of him?

They behead so it is therefore permissable or justifiable to disembowel one of their women? To drop a nuke on on of their cities? Surely, if they behead it is ok under your argument to behead them?

What does "corresponding" even mean in your sentence?

You end up where the morality of your acts are determined only by what the other side does and the clear consequence is that Christ's injunctions or any other previous moral injunctions and calculations lose all weight.

And please don't suggest that the proper address to these matters is that complainers like me ought to complain about beheadings, not US actions and policies.

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blatham wrote:

And please don't suggest that the proper address to these matters is that complainers like me ought to complain about beheadings, not US actions and policies.

Why not. Seems like a fair response to me.

More importantly, you still have not responded to my point about the logical consequenses of your categorical classifications. Life, and certainly national policy, presents us with choices between bad and worse, not unvarnished good and evil. If you believe that the struggle of western democracies against totalitarianisms of the left and right in the past century was a good thing then you have violated your own professed standards. Alternatively, perhaps you are being consistent and believe that the outcome of the struggle was a matter to which you are morally indifferent.

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george

Which "categorical classifications" do you find in my previous posts? Could you please list them.

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C'mon now -- read the dialogue. It is there.

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george

I would rather that you understood how truly dangerous for your country is the tendency that you (and Brandon earlier) manifest to reactively excuse anything your country has done and is doing, in Iraq and elsewhere. Moral judgements regarding America's acts and policies do not entail that America is sent immediately to Hell. It doesn't mean you lose your penis. It doesn't mean that your mommy will hate America forever.

This is a blind spot for you guys. And anybody here on a2k from australia or canada or belgium or germany or anywhere else will tell you the same thing I am saying...that this is hurting America.

As a nation and culture, you'll smarten up or you won't.

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I'll second that.

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On the plus side, george, I think most americans understand the extremism of the position that you and Brandon take here in avoiding most any serious address to moral questions relevant to US behavior/policy in Iraq. Cheney, Rumsfeld and crowd made very sure indeed to tell a story that had the Abu Ghraib torturers as a few sadistic nutsos from the Appalachians precisely because they knew the moral outrage that would follow if Americans understood that American leaders had now effectively and knowingly begun to order and facilitate torture. The secrecy, the refusal to allow Red Cross observers, the impediments to any congressional or senate investigations are there to prevent citizens from seeing what is going on - they hide what will disgust.

Quote:

Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to secretary of state Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005, singled out Mr Cheney in a wide-ranging political assault on the BBC's Today programme.

Mr Wilkerson said that in an internal administration debate over whether to abide by the Geneva conventions in the treatment of detainees, Mr Cheney led the argument "that essentially wanted to do away with all restrictions".

Asked whether the vice-president was guilty of a war crime, Mr Wilkerson replied: "Well, that's an interesting question - it was certainly a domestic crime to advocate terror and I would suspect that it is ... an international crime as well." In the context of other remarks it appeared he was using the word "terror" to apply to the systematic abuse of prisoners.
The Washington Post last month called Mr Cheney the "vice-president for torture" for his demand that the CIA be exempted from a ban on "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment of detainees.

Mr Wilkerson, a former army colonel, also said he had seen increasing evidence that the White House had manipulated pre-war intelligence on Iraq to make its case for the invasion. He said: "You begin to wonder was this intelligence spun? Was it politicised? Was it cherry-picked? Did, in fact, the American people get fooled? I am beginning to have my concerns."

Mr Cheney has been under fire for his role in assembling evidence of weapons of mass destruction. Mr Wilkerson told the Associated Press that the vice-president must have sincerely believed Iraq could be a spawning ground for terrorism because "otherwise I have to declare him a moron, an idiot or a nefarious bastard"...

But it has now emerged that two justice department memos listing permissible interrogation methods have been kept secret by the White House, even from the Senate intelligence committee. The New Yorker recently quoted a source who had seen a memo as calling it "breathtaking".

"The document dismissed virtually all national and international laws regulating the treatment of prisoners, including war crimes and assault statutes, and it was radical in its view that in wartime the president can fight enemies by whatever means he sees fit," the magazine reported.

link

There is a definite possibility that Rumsfeld and Cheney and others will eventually find themselves on trial for war crimes. That possibility grows as the republican hold on power - and on oversight - diminishes. For that reason alone, a few of these folks can be expected to fight tooth and nail to prevent the loss of this power over government functioning. But it looks very much now like they've over-reached so much, and been so incompetent and foolish in power, that they've cooked their own goose.

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goodfielder wrote:

I'll second that.

It is a head-shaker, ain't it, goodfielder?

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blatham wrote:

goodfielder wrote:
I'll second that.

It is a head-shaker, ain't it, goodfielder?

blatham - easy for me to say I know, but I think when the temporary madness is over with, Americans will be extremely angry at what has happened.

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goodfielder

It's my prayer. Of course, the paper-shredders will be working enough to blow relay stations and the muck at the bottom of the Hudson River turning orange with rusting hard-drives.

But by "it's a head-shaker" I particularly meant the thing so many of us from outside the US bump into...we really like the place, even love it, in all its wonderful woof and warp and genius and liberty and zest. But when we suggest that along with all that good stuff there is also some serious fukkedupness, some american folks react like you'd just raped their mother.

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Quote:

But by "it's a head-shaker" I particularly meant the thing so many of us from outside the US bump into...we really like the place, even love it, in all its wonderful woof and warp and genius and liberty and zest. But when we suggest that along with all that good stuff there is also some serious fukkedupness, some american folks react like you'd just raped their mother.

Your final statement is hilarious- I mean it! Laughing

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Blatham drones on. He is a Canadian. Canada is miles ahead of the US in morality and good politics. Sure!!!

Chicago Sun Times- Tuesday November 29th- P. 32

"Canada's government fallis in scandal"

"A corruption scandal forced a vote of no-confidence Monday that toppled Prime Minister Paul Martin's minority government..."

end of quote
I thought that the RCMP would never allow that to happen in Canada.

Why don't you fix the scandals up in Canada first, Blotham. Then, you can come back to preach to the US.

LOL

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In one sense Mortkat, you have demonstrated Blatham's point; but that is all right.

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Blotham's point is that the USA and all of its institutions are corrupt.

As I said, he should go back to Canada to save those totally moral people before he comes back to save us.

I will be on these threads when the present Administration, which Blotham says is corrupt, retains its majority in the House and Senate in the 2006 elections. We shall see what Blotham says then. Probably something elitist and anti-Democratic such as: I always knew the American voter did not have good sense.

Even if he were to think like that, the US would run even without the ministrations of the Canadian Mounted Police!!!

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quex144 wrote:

In one sense Mortkat, you have demonstrated Blatham's point; but that is all right.

quex

Thankyou for the compliment.

This mortkat fellow is possibly loved by his grandchildren and I leave it to them to listen to him or engage him.

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Blatham writes -

blatham wrote:

But by "it's a head-shaker" I particularly meant the thing so many of us from outside the US bump into...we really like the place, even love it, in all its wonderful woof and warp and genius and liberty and zest. But when we suggest that along with all that good stuff there is also some serious fukkedupness, some american folks react like you'd just raped their mother.

Mortkat responds -

Quote:

Blotham's point is that the USA and all of its institutions are corrupt.

Maybe Mortkat should stop pretending his mother just got raped.

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Grouch-style aside to camera...

"Have you seen his mother?! She'd be delighted."

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Ah yes, the musings of DeadCat.

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Unlike some on this thread, I do have grandchildren. And unlike some on this thread, I am an American citizen. I do not come from another country like Canada which is so far gone in its politics that its Prime Minister is removed for corruption; so far gone in its economy that its dollar is miniscule when compared to the American dollar and so far gone morally that it has almost abandoned the traditional concept of marriage.

I am of the opinion that, unfortunately, most of the sniping that comes from sources outside the USA is based on the most degrading of the vices- ENVY.

Despite the protestations of those who would claim that their country is superior morally, artistically, legally or possess an older tradition, the fact remains that everyone( except of course, the Jean Genet or Jean Paul Sartre types) wants to come here.

ENVY is so pitiable. It manifests itself in the rancor of the deprived.

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Congressional Oversight of Executive Disappears (or almost)

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