# Godwin for the gander - Senator Durbin shoots his fucking mouth off... **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 16, 2005, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593 "2005-06-16T18:55:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 17
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/321 "2005-06-19T01:43:08Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > Is there anything to back up the link (in this thread?) about members of our government wanting to cut our contributions to the International Red Cross? There’s _something_ going on there: [Senate body to challenge impartiality of Red Cross](http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.asp?feed=FT&Date=20050612&ID=4885117) [Red Cross hits back at U.S. Republican critic](http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L17494224.htm) [Republicans say Red Cross is working against the US](http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10330882) It’s too early to tell how serious they are, or whether they really plan to cut contributions. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/322 "2005-06-19T02:28:44Z")
**Squink** , you are a gold mine! From your first link: > [@](#): > > Asking that the Republican body not be named before the paper was released, the aide said it would raise concerns about “recent ICRC actions and statements that call in to question the organisation’s long-standing impartiality and neutrality principles when applied to the US government”. So the aide asked that the Republican body that he represented remain secret. From your second link: (Oops, somebody doesn’t like secrets.) > [@](#): > > A policy adviser for the U.S. Senate Republican majority said this week the ICRC had lost its impartiality and was advocating positions at odds with U.S. interests…The report was written by Dan Fata, who directs national security studies for the Republican Policy Committee, a group chaired by influential Senator John Kyl. So much for national security, eh, Dan? > [@](#): > > Specifically, Fata faults the organisation for reinterpreting international law “so as to afford terrorists and insurgents the same rights and privileges” as the military personnel of countries like the US who have signed the Geneva Conventions. Yes, the Internation Committee of the Red Cross believes in _Human Rights._ Equal justice under the law. All men are created equal. Inalienable rights. You remember…(dreamy, Letterman harp music…) > [@](#): > > In addition, he accused the organisation of lobbying for arms control issues – such as a ban on landmines – “that are not within (its) mandate.” What if…what if the ICRC decides what its mandate is and is not…(Letterman music again…) > [@](#): > > “Arguably, when it comes to non-emergency relief operations, the ICRC is no longer an impartial and trustworthy guardian. It has become another clamouring interest group like Amnesty International, a status which can only weaken the ICRC and sap its credibility,” he said. Clamouring interest group? Weaken its credibility? I wonder if Mr. Fata and Senator Kyl remember what these three international organizations have in common: 1. International Committee of the Red Cross 2. Amnesty International 3. International Campaign to Ban Land Mines They all won Nobel Peace Prizes. When the GOP does _that_ – or when a representative of the GOP and the DNC joinly share it for their efforts to rebuild our country across partisan divides, Congress will have little credibility with many of us. The current Administration _never_ will. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/323 "2005-06-19T02:47:00Z")
> [@Apos](#): > > There was a time when Mr. Moto and Sam Stone were simply people with whom I disagreed and traded barbs with. It’s now seeming more and more like they are the enemy of everything this country needs to stand for, and that makes me very depressed. > > …If you honestly cannot put one of the regimes Durbin noted in that blank… well I dont’t believe you. You aren’t BEING honest. You are just a twisted apologist for something deeply unamerican and twisted. Please: resign your commendations. Turn in your citizenship, voluntarily. America was wasted on you. I’ve been pretty honest in this thread. I’ve not denied abuse at Gitmo and other prisons, and offered a comparison myself of what that abuse resembled to my eyes. And that abuse didn’t resemble Auschwitz or the killing fields, sorry. It resembled the State Correctional Institution in Greene County, Pennsylvania and some other American domestic prisons. So I found the comparison Senator Durbin made hyperbolic and inappropriate. Incidentally, I wasn’t the only one, as [this letter to Senator Durbin from the Anti-Defamation League indicates:](http://www.adl.org/PresRele/HolNa_52/4734_52.htm) > [@](#): > > Dear Senator Durbin: > > We write to object to your reference to Nazis in the context of the debate on detainees at Guantanamo Bay on the Senate floor earlier this week. > > Whatever your views on the treatment of detainees and alleged excesses at the Guantanamo Bay facility, it is inappropriate and insensitive to suggest that actions by American troops in any way resemble actions taken by Nazis in their treatment of prisoners. Suggesting some kind of equivalence between their interrogation tactics demonstrates a profound lack of understanding about the horrors that Hitler and his regime actually perpetrated. > > We urge you to repudiate your remarks and apologize to the American people for distorting an important issue with an inappropriate comparison to Nazi tactics. However heated the debate over issues of the day, we would urge you to refrain from using Holocaust imagery in the future. Pretty much what I said, isn’t it? Except that I used profanity, this being the Pit and all. I wonder if you’d ask the ADL leadership and its membership to turn in their citizenship as well, **Apos**? You know, calling someone anti-American because of a political difference is pretty low, lower by far than anything Senator Durbin has done. And it’s certainly something I don’t do as a rule on these boards. That doesn’t depress me, but it does disappoint me a bit, **Apos**. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/324 "2005-06-19T02:53:59Z")
Name an American state correctional facility where they chain prisoners to the floor in 100 degree heat and their own shit for more than 24 hours without food or water. ---
**Author:** ![newcrasher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b3f665/32.png) [@newcrasher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcrasher)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/325 "2005-06-19T02:58:10Z")
> [@Zoe](#): > > **Squink** , you are a gold mine! > > From your first link: > > So the aide asked that the Republican body that he represented remain secret. > > From your second link: > > (Oops, somebody doesn’t like secrets.) > > So much for national security, eh, Dan? > > Yes, the Internation Committee of the Red Cross believes in _Human Rights._ Equal justice under the law. All men are created equal. Inalienable rights. You remember…(dreamy, Letterman harp music…) > > What if…what if the ICRC decides what its mandate is and is not…(Letterman music again…) > > Clamouring interest group? Weaken its credibility? I wonder if Mr. Fata and Senator Kyl remember what these three international organizations have in common: > > 1. International Committee of the Red Cross > 2. Amnesty International > 3. International Campaign to Ban Land Mines > > They all won Nobel Peace Prizes. When the GOP does _that_ – or when a representative of the GOP and the DNC joinly share it for their efforts to rebuild our country across partisan divides, Congress will have little credibility with many of us. The current Administration _never_ will. Yasser Arafat won a Nobel Peace Prize too… ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/326 "2005-06-19T03:17:18Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > I’ve been pretty honest in this thread. Agreed. You’re also wrong, combative, pigheaded and obstinate, but at least you put some effort into understanding events. There are far worse ilk than you. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/327 "2005-06-19T03:19:43Z")
Form the Antidefamation League" [http://www.adl.org/PresRele/HolNa\_52/4734\_52.htm](http://www.adl.org/PresRele/HolNa_52/4734_52.htm) > [@](#): > > In a speech on the Senate floor on June 14th on the situation at Guantanamo Bay he likened American treatment of prisoners to what “must have been done by Nazis… that had no concern for human beings.” What Durbin said: > [@](#): > > On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, > but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day > before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor. > If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what > Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have > been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime – Pol Pot or others – that had no > concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the > treatment of their prisoners. > It is not too late. I hope we will learn from history. I hope we will change course. > The President could declare the United States will apply the Geneva Conventions to the > war on terrorism. He could declare, as he should, that the United States will not, under any > circumstances, subject any detainee to torture, or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. The > administration could give all detainees a meaningful opportunity to challenge their detention > before a neutral decisionmaker. > Such a change of course would dramatically improve our image and it would make us > safer. I hope this administration will choose that course. If they do not, Congress must step in. The problem I have here is that the defamation league now is doing IMO some of it, you would expect that kind of selective quoting from Fox news. But then again Durbin already said it was not a good idea to mention the Nazis, the problem I see now is the still un-American action of using and exaggerating this to avoid the real problem: [http://talkleft.com/new\_archives/011127.html](http://talkleft.com/new_archives/011127.html) > [@](#): > > Why is no one calling on Senator Bill Frist to apologize to Senator Dick Durbin? Sen. Frist, repeating a false headline in the Washington Times, accused Sen. Durbin of saying Guantanamo is “a death camp.” (Frist’s statement, in two parts, is here and here. Read Senator Durbin’s remarks. He never said that. > Frist also falsely claimed that Durbin said our service members are “committing genocide and war crimes.” Durbin never said that either. Most outrageously, Frist essentially accused Durbin of encouraging suicide bombers: > > “It is anti-American and only fuels the animus of our enemies who are constantly searching for ways to portray our great country and our people as anti-muslim and anti-Arab. It is this type of language that they use to recruit others to be car bombers; suicide attackers; hostage takers; and full-fledged jihadists.” > > This is a transparent attempt by the right-wing to change the subject from the real problem - torture. The Bush administration’s torture policies are un-American and they put our troops and risk and make American less safe. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/328 "2005-06-19T03:34:52Z")
Frist should not have said that Durbin called Gitmo a death camp. That he did not do. The accusation that Durbin drew parallels to the Nazis and Stalin is dead on. Durbin did draw those parallels - he made those connections in his speech. Guilty as charged. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/329 "2005-06-19T03:36:36Z")
> [@newcrasher](#): > > Yasser Arafat won a Nobel Peace Prize too… So did Henry Kissinger. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/330 "2005-06-19T03:53:41Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > Frist should not have said that Durbin called Gitmo a death camp. That he did not do. > > The accusation that Durbin drew parallels to the Nazis and Stalin is dead on. Durbin did draw those parallels - he made those connections in his speech. Guilty as charged. Dunno **Mr. Moto** , if you still want to follow that, the context then would mean that then Durbin said that the Nazis had the ability to change course. IMO this still shows that Durbin meant that we are not like them since we have hope, the Nazis did not. In any case, something must be done about the course of action in Guantanamo. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/331 "2005-06-19T04:00:02Z")
As the 2nd Bushivik admin demurely plops into the toilet of history, desperate Pubbies clutch for an issue. Perhaps they can blow this up into something. Perhaps a Japanese condom can be inflated into a dirigible. Good luck with that. You’re gonna need it. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/332 "2005-06-19T04:07:37Z")
Seeing the ADL’s selective quote again I have to say that not reporting the complete quote was really bad. Of course, I have to say just like Durbin that it was regretful to mention the nazis, but the complete quote would have diminished the criticism. I have to say that it is really disappointing to see the ADL do that. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/333 "2005-06-19T04:33:29Z")
**Mr. Moto** and **newscrasher** , how predictable can you be! (Neither Arafat nor Kissinger were/are international organizations.) But you’re right, of course. Since Arafat and Kissinger have won, the Nobel Peace Prize has lost all credibility. No one puts any stock in it any more. It means nothing. Everyone looks to President Bush, Dick Cheney, Bill Frist, Donald Rumsfeld, and Tom Delay when they want straight talk. :rolleyes: (Those eyes don’t go far enough back in my head…) ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/334 "2005-06-19T04:36:56Z")
I can’t believe the shit Republicans are trying to pull here. Instead of us being angry at the Administration that condones torture, we are angry at the people who are trying to put a stop to it! What’s worse, a person torturing someone or a person _saying the person who is torturing another acts more like a Nazi should act than an American_? ---
**Author:** ![New\_Iskander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/db5fbb/32.png) [@New\_Iskander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Iskander)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/335 "2005-06-19T08:41:56Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > The freedom of the people to _dissent_ is far more attractive than you’re giving it credit for, and the more conspicuous we make that freedom the better. So next time Hillary shoots her trap about taking money away from rich people for common good, you will applaud me calling her a Marxist Politburo broad? Or shall I make it a bit more _conspicuous_? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/336 "2005-06-19T12:23:43Z")
I would applaud your ability to say it without fear of imprisonment and torture for it, certainly. That’s what the world sees. I would also applaud your assistance in contributing to the image of the Bushlicking faction as simpleminded, hatefilled fools. The world sees that, too. **Blalron** , you’ve got it. Even the Iskys and Sams of the world might, one would have thought, have a bottom to their views of acceptable behavior. But we now for sure now that there is nothing, nothing at all, that this or any other Republican administration can do or lie about that they will not applaud, and no criticism of it that they will accept as valid. In their Party Above Country view (and a very odd view it is for at least one person here), gratituitous torture is acceptable, but the simple phrasing of any objection to it is an open target. The explanation? Because the rest of the world is too backward, too simplistic, too ignorant to judge us by our actions instead of our words. I’m not quite sure if that’s simple condescension or outright racism, but it really doesn’t matter, it’s ignorance in action either way. The world, or at least the small part of it that reads this board, can see the chickenhawks for what they are, too. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Iskander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/db5fbb/32.png) [@New\_Iskander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Iskander)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/337 "2005-06-19T14:32:42Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > As to the claim that we should try to soft-pedal the news–or our views of the news–I would note that that has been a consistent patteren of Right Wing dishonesty extending all the way back the the Reagan era. Once Reagan took the presidency (and further, when the Republicans took the Senate), there were frequent calls for Voice of America to stop being an objective news source and to begin being a better source of U.S. advertising. Yet, when the Iron Curtain finally fell, one of the persistent comments from the peoples who had lived behind it was that they appreciated that the American source of news included comments that were critical of America, while they could never trust TASS, Pravda, Iszvestia, etc., because those sources played up the evils of the West while denying that there were any problems in the Soviet countries. Thit is something I can tell you about on a basis of long years of personal experience. Sorry to admit, we Soviet dissidents were only human and thus biased. Like most people, we loved overblown rhetoric only if it suited us. We loved Reagan for talking about ‘Evil Empire’ and ‘bombing in five minutes’, but we had nothing but contempt for his critics calling hime senile criminal etc. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Iskander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/db5fbb/32.png) [@New\_Iskander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Iskander)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/338 "2005-06-19T14:34:19Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > I would applaud your ability to say it without fear of imprisonment and torture for it, certainly. That’s what the world sees. > > I would also applaud your assistance in contributing to the image of the Bushlicking faction as simpleminded, hatefilled fools. The world sees that, too. So you can call me names but I can’t call you names, that’s what it is? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/339 "2005-06-19T15:06:10Z")
> [@New Iskander](#): > > So next time Hillary shoots her trap about taking money away from rich people for common good, you will applaud me calling her a Marxist Politburo broad? Or shall I make it a bit more _conspicuous_? Are you an American citizen? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2005, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593/340 "2005-06-19T15:07:35Z")
> [@New Iskander](#): > > So you can call me names but I can’t call you names, that’s what it is? Who said you can’t call us names? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593.md?page=16) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/godwin-for-the-gander-senator-durbin-shoots-his-fucking-mouth-off/308593.md?page=18)