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Even a right wing rubber stamp group like CATO has now given up the ghost and did a 180 on torture. No longer defending the Bush administration CATO admits waterboarding definitively is torture and was completely wrong.
From the Cato Institute, by way of a quote by Delong:
Quote:
Of Course It Was Torture: Thursday, the Obama administration released previously classified memos detailing interrogation techniques used against enemy prisoners.... Bush administration lawyers assured the CIA that waterboarding detainees and keeping them awake for a week or more was perfectly legal.... Conservative legal analyst David Rivkin, one of Bush's most reliable defenders, insists that "any fair-minded observer" would conclude that the documents prove that "the Bush administration did not torture." But... Rivkin's assertion is on a par with left-wing diehards' claim that President Clinton didn't commit perjury.
Let's start with waterboarding. If it's not torture, then maybe we owe an apology to the Japanese soldiers we prosecuted for it after WWII. It felt "like I was drowning," Lieutenant Chase Nielsen testified in a 1946 war crimes trial, "just gasping between life and death."... [T]he policy was, at the very least, criminally stupid.... Bush administration defenders prefer to describe each technique in isolation, glossing over the fact that it was the relentless combination of such tactics for extended periods that made them rise to the level of torture.... Read the descriptions military personnel provided of prisoners' reactions to "enhanced interrogation": "Detainee began to cry. Detainee bit the IV tube completely in two. Started moaning.... Yelled for Allah. Urinated on himself.... Trembled uncontrollably." Does that meet the statutory definition? Gosh yes, that's a tough legal question.
The point here isn't to make you shed a tear for Al Qaeda prisoners; mass murderers (actual or aspiring) are pretty hard to feel sorry for. But anyone who understands the issue ought to feel some remorse over the damage our policy did to the rule of law and American interests abroad....
Imagine if, shortly after 9/11, someone had told you that the US government would adopt an interrogation policy based on Chinese Communist techniques designed to elicit false confessions. You'd have thought that person was pretty cynical. But he'd turn out to be exactly right.... SERE was adopted in the wake of the Korean War to train American soldiers to resist abuse by rogue regimes. After 9/11, we put those techniques to work to interrogate terrorist suspects. It's hardly surprising, then, that... "We spent millions of dollars chasing false alarms." Beaten savagely by Egyptian torturers, one victim of our "extraordinary rendition" program concocted a story about Saddam Hussein giving Al Qaeda WMD training. That story made it into Colin Powell's UN Security Council speech selling the Iraq War.
In his ill-fated presidential campaign, Republican congressman Tom Tancredo got his biggest applause line when he cheered for torture in a May 2007 debate: "I'm lookin' for Jack Bauer!" The real thing is a lot less glamorous—and a lot less effective—than what you see on TV. Around the same time Tancredo was mugging for the cameras, General David Petraeus issued an open letter to his troops warning against the use of torture: "Adherence to our values distinguishes us from our enemy." That's a principle we should keep in mind going forward.
The Cato Institute is not a right-wing rubber stamp group. They are a classical liberal/libertarian organization and are an equal opportunity criticizer. They never defended the Bush administration. In fact, they have been critical of his time in office.
I think that this is a nonpartisan issue and both sides should be demanding investigations and prosecutions.
I agree; it's sad when other countries are more willing to judge our officials than we are. It isn't a partisan issue, it isn't a "Gotcha!" situation. If one is
unable to prosecute those who violate the Constitution, no matter how high
that prosecution reaches, then they deny the validity of the document and
betray our veterans who fought to defend it.
Water boarding may be pushing the envelope. If they were pulling out fingernails and drilling knee caps I would be more concerned. We will probaly never know how effective water boarding was in getting accurate info.
I agree; it's sad when other countries are more willing to judge our officials than we are. It isn't a partisan issue, it isn't a "Gotcha!" situation. If one is
unable to prosecute those who violate the Constitution, no matter how high
that prosecution reaches, then they deny the validity of the document and
betray our veterans who fought to defend it.
Yes it's about who we are as a nation, and if we are not holding ourselves to a higher standard then who are we to judge others.
They were once a Libertarian think tank - a very long time ago.
When did they become traitorous to their principles and defend the Bush administration? I don't think that they are honest about the global warming debate and are one-sided, but other than that I do not see them cozying up to the neo-cons.
If you have valid criticism outside of their libertarianism philosophy, then I would appreciate it.
When even right wing groups like CATO are calling it torture you know it is torture.
Yeah, probly would've been better to lose LA than to torture. Just think of all the savings in pensions, welfare, government budget, less immigration.... and to finally get rid of Hollywood.
When did they become traitorous to their principles and defend the Bush administration? I don't think that they are honest about the global warming debate and are one-sided, but other than that I do not see them cozying up to the neo-cons.
If you have valid criticism outside of their libertarianism philosophy, then I would appreciate it.
They have very discreetly eliminated the terms Individual Rights and Individual Liberties from all of their correspondence and writings - and have substituted the terms, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.
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