Imagine buying a ticket to see Dick Cheney speak and winding up having to listen to Mark Steyn. That’s what happened to a bunch of crazy Canadians when Cheney cancelled a scheduled appearance in Toronto because it was too dangerous. You see, in more polite countries, the only difference between Dick Cheney and Idi Amin is that Cheney has a higher death count. The last time Cheney made the mistake of traveling north, he wound up trapped for seven hours while decent human beings brayed for his head.
In September, Mr. Cheney was speaking at a private club in Vancouver when protesters massed outside the front door harassing ticket holders and in one instance, choking a security guard.
The former vice-president was reportedly held inside the building for more than seven hours as Vancouver Police in riot gear dispersed the demonstrators.
So, Cheney cancelled his appearance at the Metro Toronto Convention Cantre and sent Mark Steyn to complain about Muslims again.
I understand why Obama chose to look forward and not back. But we lost an opportunity to define the Bush years as a criminal aberration, as a national stain never to be repeated. As a result, things just got crazier. In the rest of the world, Dick Cheney’s freedom of movement and speech is a complete affront to justice and humane values. In our country, James Carville writes op-eds in defense of Scooter Libby.
In any Civilized country outside of North America, Dick Cheney is Properly seen as a WAR CRIMINAL, a purveyor of torture that disrespects the Geneva Convention.
Call it what you want, Torture is Torture, and da, da, da
with NO happy ending.
Prosecuting torturers would have had significant ramifications regarding our Iraqi and Afghan “partners” (ongoing torture states during the Obama administration) and international and corporate co-conspirators in the Bush global rendition/black site scheme.
Also, he would have gotten 60 votes on approximately nothing in the senate, since the GOP would have revolted en masse at the prospect of criminal proceedings.
I doubt the idea was never even remotely taken seriously outside the office of legal council and various cabinet department IGs’ offices.
I doubt the idea was never even remotely taken seriously outside the office of legal council and various cabinet department IGs’ offices.
It wasn’t even taken seriously in any of those. But glad you admit that there is one set of laws for the Joe Blow, and one set for the hoi polloi.
hoi polloi is Joe Blow. It means the common people, Mr. Superior.
Specifically, it is the masculine plural for the nominative case of the word ‘polus.’ Polus means “many.”
It is actually oi polloi, with an accent on the first o.
It means ‘the masses.’ Or it means lots and lots of dudes.
I stand corrected. I should have used Versailles, or “The Village”. Or the 1%. But no matter, equal justice under the law it is not.
I would have loved to see how long that GOP Senate revolt lasted as the facts about the Bush/Cheney Presidency came out. Or what the 2010 election would have looked like.
I doubt the idea was never taken seriously at all because it would require the devolution of some degree of Presidential power. The dynamics put in place by the Constitution set up a system where the other branches must take power from a branch that has seized power unacceptably. The politicization of the Supreme Court, a form of faction, has prevented that. Although the courts (even the Supreme Court) have been more of a check on unreasonable Presidential power in the last half decade than the Congress has been.
The facts already are out, TarheelDem. And not just in the provenance of ProPublica or the ACLU or whatever, but every major media outlet, print or tv.
The world knows about dudes getting drowned 180 times, and power drills or black sites or Gitmo or even the exact sequence of events and chain-of-command decisions that created and then suspended the various programs involved.
Nobody cares that much.
Nobody “cares that much” only because nobody is told to care that much by the media. Everybody…or at least numerous large segments of “everybody”…cares about something. That’s the game.
Linsanity, the Republican laugh machine, Obama’s citizenship, them Krazy Kardasians, How About Those Mets…the lists and sublists are endless.
But daily shouts about the evils of waterboarding, extraordinary renditions or wanton mass murder in the pursuit of power? Shunted to the side in favor of Snooki, Madame Obama’s wardrobe and the new spring shows on TV.
C’mon…
If the network news programs opened up with massive doses of anti-torture for days on end, suddenly nobody would not care. But don’t hold your breath…at least not unless you yourself are being waterboarded, of course. The control mechanism is not about to attack one of its most powerful fear-producing weapons.
Ain’t gonna happen.
Bet on it.
So it goes.
Back to the minefields and careful where you step, peon.
Later…
S.
What Bajooka Joe said.
Torturing terrorists is popular. Gitmo is popular. There was a big, public fight over those things (remember “waterboarding isn’t really torture?” Remember the abortive KSM trial in NYC?) in 2009, with the President of the United States leading the charge, and we got our asses kicked.
You think the 2010 elections would have turned out differently if the Democrats had been bemoaning the abuse of al Qaeda detainees instead of talking about jobs? Not a chance.
[quote]But we lost an opportunity to define the Bush years as a criminal aberration, as a national stain never to be repeated.[/quote]But that isn’t true. It’s not an aberration at all. The country does support this kind of cruelty and violence.
You know, I agreed with Booman until I read your comment, and realized, hey, wait a minute. I’m about to sit down to read The Culture of Make Believe which I’ve had recommended to me many times but never got around to. And from what I can tell the book documents the many ways in which your comment is right.
On matters of law, it really doesn’t matter what the country supports. In 1954, the country supported segregated schools and prayer in the public schools and censorship of books, like James Joyce’s Ulysses, for obscenity.
The question is whether the same standard is applied to all.
In this century so far, the answer has been No. There is one set off laws for those who can afford fancy lawyers and another for everyone else. The 1930s joke about the way to rob a bank has returned.
On matters of law
The question of “defining” the Bush/Cheney administration isn’t a matter of law; it’s a matter of politics and political messaging.
Even if it should be, it’s not.
Think back to the Trail of Tears. John Marshall made his decision, now let him enforce it. It’s an extreme example but what about prohibition, or use of weed? The ability to enforce every law is heavily dependent on how much the public is willing to tolerate spending resources on to enforce the law.
And as you said, the answer here has been largely no. Why did Hirihito go unpunished? Why was Curtis LeMay not tried for war crimes?
People aren’t blind, they know these injustices exist. I think they’re one reason things like torture are quietly encouraged. Or people strongly support the DP even if innocent people have been executed. If you feel oppressed and crushed, it gives a little sense of power, of agency even, if you can oppress and crush someone else especially in the guise of “revenge.” It’s a deeply sick thing, but having your face rubbed into money = God for years and years and having almost no security will do sick things to you.
The United States’ use of torture and other gross violations of human rights did not begin with the Bush administration, nor did it end with them. They were just a whole lot more honest about it.
There’s a difference. Even the best disciplined army in the world will kill people it shouldn’t. Rapes will occur, they do in every war. Brutality and torture are almost certain to occur, even if the army tries to avoid it.
And we can go tit for tat over whatever crime US presidents are guilty of — it’s part of the job description in running a government, really.
The institutionalizing of it is that difference, and it matters. It matters a great deal.
Seabe, torture and brutality were used by the United States military, among other government agencies, for a very long time, and not just by “a few bad apples”. There were the equivalent of “black sites” prior to the Bush administration. It was Clinton’s administration, not that of Bush, that instituted the practice of “extraordinary rendition”. The military, and the CIA, to name just two government organizations, were also carrying out kidnappings and assassinations long before George W. Bush came into power. And those practices have not stopped with the election of Barack Obama.
The main difference with the Bush administration in this regard is that they did a great deal more of it, they got caught at it, and they openly tried to legitimize what they couldn’t deny.
Right, and that’s the difference that matters a great deal. I believe it was Reagan who used renditions first, but I’m not dumb enough to believe that’s the first instance of “official” US torture.
Like I said, we can go tit for tat over how much of a war criminal every US president is — and I believe the term would probably fit with every single president since the existence of the term.
But I do think that difference is there to matter enough to prosecute.
The main difference with the Bush administration in this regard is that they did a great deal more of it
This is a rather different point than “The only difference is they were more honest about it.”
I also notice that you dropped the claim that torture was continuing under the Obama administration, and changed the subject to “kidnappings” and “assassinations.” You’re still wrong, but you’re a lot less wrong, for doing so.
As usual, you find it necessary to selectively quote in a way that misrepresents in order to make any point at all. What a shame you are not able to argue honestly.
And no, I did not drop anything, nor did I change the subject. Again, you cannot manage to argue honestly.
There is no real world anymore. There is only what the media say is real. “The country”…the majority of the American people…support whatever the media tell them to support. This is a form of mass hypnosis. Hypnotists tell us that certain people can be hypnotized into doing particular things but not other things and that certain other people will have a different set of resistances and acceptances regarding trance state orders. Cover all of the available bases but the one that is not desired…in this instance, the criminal prosecution of American war criminals…by the various so-called competng media and you have a broad coalition of left, right and center that does not even touch the unwanted idea.
They ran the same game with Ron Paul this year.
Give the undecideds Romney, Gingrich, Santorum, Perry, Bachmann etc…Obama already being an acceptable alternative as far as the opinion makers are concerned…and the only really dangerous option simply folds up and slinks away from lack of attention.
This is the primary method of governance now in the U.S. Offer only PermaGov-acceptable alternatives and watch the masses scramble for the leftovers while the 1% eat the good stuff.
Nice.
All of this palaver about “the Supreme Court,” “public opinion,” “checks and balances,” “the good guys vs. the bad guys” and so on? Just a black and white smokescreen used to grey out the only really interesting possibilities.
Color me finished with that shit.
It’s all a big con game.
I’m out, myself.
Y’all should be too.
Bet on it.
Later…
AG
Too bad Arthur gets his sense of identity from hating reality…Arthur…make me feel better…do you at least have some moments of Joy?
Moments of joy? Too many to count. Sorry to disappoint you, LFA.
I am a professional musician, specializing in American idioms like jazz and latin music. I play with the best of the best in NYC and I have made my living doing so for well over forty years. That’s what I do, bubba. “Play.” For hours each and every day. Grown-up play on the monkey bars of the divine overtone series.
Joy? You have no idea…
I am also fairly thoroughly unhooked from the paranoia-based media machine that we laughingly refer to as “the news.” That’s an over-the-moon joy quotient right there. Bet on it.
Y’oughta try it.
“Joy?”
You have no idea.
Bet on that as well.
Have fun, bro’.
Try it.
Step away from the TV with your brains in the air.
You be bettah off.
I am.
Damn straight I am.
Later…
AG
Imagine buying a ticket to see Dick Cheney speak.
Period.
Imagine buying a ticket to see him hanged.
I’d MUCH rather buy a ticket to see him rot in prison.
I guess there really is such a thing as too failed to big.
Absolutely Pathetic…do you believe your own bullshit? Keep talking about “criminals” Bush /Cheney…and We will eat your lunch in November…as Obama essentially continues Bush’s policies…hypocritical m—–f—–s…
Wake Up!
Torture banned, Iraq exited, al Qaeda taken seriously, every single terrorism suspect we’re captured tried in federal court and sentenced to civilian prison.
Yeah, JUST LIKE BUSH, except for everything being completely different.
thanks for replying to that tedious nonsense