Bull. When asked, yesterday, whether he would have the same interrogation techniques if he had been in George W. Bush’s shoes after Sept. 11, 2001, Obama said:
“I’m not gonna engage in those hypotheticals… Nobody can fully understand what it was like to be responsible for the safety and security of the American people in the aftermath of the worst attack on our national soil.”
That’s a tacit endorsement of Bush’s policy. Not “preventing societal damage”.
No it’s not. It’s a dodge, obviously.
Yes, it is a tacit endorsement. He is tacitly saying he would have done the same. Without being explicit.
No, just a dodge.
It’s called diplomacy. Bush did a shitty thing, but maybe in his shoes another president might have panicked and acted like a vile piece of shit. We’ll never know.
Saying it’s a tacit endorsement is just utter partisan spinning.
Any more personal shots of this nature will receive a Warning. This does nothing to move the discussion forward.
[ /Moderating ]
This is nothing but partisan rhetoriic. Sitting presidents simply do not criticize their predecessors. It isn’t done. Pretending that refusing to openly criticize a former president from the Oval Office is, in some odd way, an “endorsement” of his actions has no bearing on reality.
You disagree that doing things like raping prisoners is horrendous?
I just want to get you on record.
As to the question of prosecutions:
A) We do not know that there will be none (although I suspect that there will not). The Justice Department did not see the report (to the limited extent that it has been released) any sooner than anyone else. It takes time to put together an actual indictment and there has clearly been so such time, yet.
B) Even if the DoJ does attempt to prosecute, so much of the information regarding the persons involved is still classified that bringing any particular person to trial is problematic, at best.
C) And there is the further problem that the Bush administration selectively chose specific lawyers to vet these activities and approve them in advance. Bringing to trial a person who had the approval of the DoJ for his actions will result in court actions that will take decades to resolve.
Charges of “cowardice” are nothing more than emotional rants and partisan sniping.
I wasn’t even thinking about “C”. That’s a good point.
Neither do former presidents.
That’s actually related to one of the reasons I’ve gained a touch more compassion for W than I would like, and why I am a touch less angry with Obama than I want to be: Being POTUS just…sucks. It’s a nearly incomprehensible burden, every minute of every day. It has the most amazing highs and the most devastating lows; the greatest power one can hold and the greatest responsibility.
And it’s goddamn complex. Anyone who truly argues that any president is *stupid *is an idiot. (Yes, even him.) Yes, I’d like to be mad at Obama about, say, Guantanamo, or wussing out on the ACA, or privacy violations, or…well, there are a lot of things I’m angry about. But there are no simple solutions. It’s easy to armchair quarterback, but the vast tapestry that is our lovely human conglomeration of diplomacy, economics, and politics is a fucking mess. And POTUS is responsible for it all,a nd has to balance it all.
That shared experience is something only four other living human beings have experienced. Ivy League old-money Republican George H.W. and redneck cracker Democrat Bubba are friends, for fuck’s sake. Even former presidents that hate one another appear together at photo ops, and never ever criticize one another (at least regarding their tenures as president; I hear most of the club find Jimmy Carter kinda fucking annoying these days). They don’t bash one another publicly, because no one else has experienced what they have.
Anyhoo. Resume thread.
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He wasn’t asked to criticize. He was asked if he would have done the same. And he refused to answer, while making an excuse for the action. That’s what tacit endorsement is, almost by definition.
Cite? I saw sleep deprivation, loud music, and standing in uncomfortable positions described as “torture”. I’ve endured such “horrendous acts” in basic training.
This is disingenuous. You were not exposed to any of those things remotely to the degree the victims tortured by the CIA were.
Did you have pureed hummus shoved up your ass, too? Did you die of hypothermia while chained to the floor?
Did you get rectal prolapse due to rectal feeding?
Evade and dodge. So let’s get some things out of the way. Is sleep deprivation a “horrendous act”? Loud music? etc. etc. I don’t think so but maybe you do. You know, just so that I know what you’re referring to when speaking of “horrendous acts”?
It depends on how long. Sleep deprivation for a week? That’s horrendous. Loud music non-stop for a week? That’s probably horrendous. For a day or two? No, probably not horrendous.
Under those circumstances, yes. That you do not is evidence of either astounding naivete or willful ignorance.
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You’re probably thinking of the memo by AG Gonzales finding a rationalization for allowing it. The direct actors could rely on that in a trial, meaning there won’t be one for them. The war criminals, as we discussed quite thoroughly at the time, were higher up - Cheney and Rumsfeld chiefly.
Some folks understand that justice has to be for everyone or it isn’t justice. Some folks also understand that we have to be better than the worst for us to take any pride at all in who we are - and this release is a step in that direction.
But some folks are easily blinded by a waving flag.