Monday, March 23, 2009
Idle thoughts
Just wondering: If Hannity, Limbaugh and their ilk had spent, say, 10 percent as much energy over the previous eight years attacking the Bush administration -- going after torture, deficits, undeclared wars, civil liberties violations -- as they already have spent going after Obama, would the country be better off?
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12 comments:
David - they did go after him for signing spending bills as fast as Congress could pass them -
Torture? If you are referring to the interrogation techniques that the military used that safeguarded Americans, there was nothing wrong to go after.
Undeclared Wars? I assume by that you mean that the conservatives should have gone after Congress, for giving their Constitutional authority to the President - almost unanimously?
I know that the blogs have no readership, but I'm not going to let you off that easily - LOL
Eric,
1. They went after him with a tiny, tiny fraction of the energy with which they have gone after Obama. And Bush might have listened to them. Why should Obama?
2. Torture happened. Even Bush and Cheney admit it. Don't try to deny it.
3. Yes.
Torture is in the eye of the beholder David -
Would you be happier if these men had simply been shot on the battlefield?
And it has been documented that these interrogations saved American lives.
Call it what you want, but those terrorists at Guantanamo have been treated much better than they deserve.
No, Eric, torture is not in the eye of the beholder. It is defined by military code, U.S. law and international treaty. You can try to excuse it away if you wish, but you cannot say it is not torture.
David, would you please come around to Eric's reasonable views on this? All countries are justified in using whatever methods they deem proper in order to protect their own soldiers and citizens. If the Germans and Japanese tortured American soldiers, they were perfectly justified in doing so, as were the North Koreans and Vietnamese and as will be any future enemies of the United States.
I hope you see the logic here.
Ed - as you know, our enemies have always engaged in such behavior - our pretending be above it won't matter -
And it isn't confined to our soldiers either - have you ever heard of Daniel Pearl?
The man who did it, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, has gotten better treatment than he gave Pearl, and better than he deserves.
Eric,
They are our enemies because they do things like that. If we do the same things, then why are we fighting?
Neca eos omnes. Deus suos agnoscet
The problem is that this country has set its standards of behavior very high -- and rightly so. And if you want to keep someone in the gutter, you have to get right down in the gutter with him to hold him there.
By sanctioning torture, Cheney and Bush have casually thrown away the goodwill we have with the rest of the world -- which took this nation 233 years to build up. The bin Ladin's and the Khalid Sheik Muhammad's of the world are loud but few in number -- more like a mosquito on an elephant, metaphorically speaking. But by actions taken in our names in places like Gitmo and Abu Grahib, we've made these jokers huge in the eyes of the Muslim world (even though neither one has been making haste towards strapping up a dynamite vest lately -- especially when they can get other suckers to do so for them). For destroying the goodwill our country has worked so hard for, Bush and Cheney deserve to be locked up themselves -- although I'm not holding my breath waiting for such a result.
Kill them all - Allah will know which ones are riteous?
Can somebody with better ancient language skills help out on this one?
It is all nothing more than psychological projection.
The phrase means: Kill them all. God will know his own. (My Latin's a little rusty, I had to Google it.)
Eric, c'mon up to Missoula and I'll waterboard you a hundred or so times. Then you can tell me if you think it's torture or not.
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