Comments on: Shorter Dick Cheney

By: Bob

Bob — Sun, 20 Jun 2004 17:03:23 +0000

C’mon. According to this source, Bush was on a divinely sanctioned mission: Bush said: “God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them.” – from: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=310788&contrassID=2&subContrassID=1&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

By: Adam Stephanides

Adam Stephanides — Sun, 20 Jun 2004 14:48:46 +0000

From Ted’s original post: “these revelations will have the unfortunate effect of changing the terms of the debate.” Why “unfortunate”?

By: Goesh

Goesh — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 15:33:04 +0000

2 Dicks on the docket for war crimes: dick cheney and bill ’ the dick’( in honor of Monica) clinton for committing atrocities against serbian civilians during the sustained 30 day bombing campaign of kosovo. You do remember that ‘good war’ I hope, in which the monster milosovich was attacked by US military might. God I love it when the liberal camp sanctions select monsters. Save some of the hand wringing for the civilian convoys hit by US high tech bombs during the kosovo war, please! Well, perhaps it was just a bad mistake during a good war that resulted in hitting those tractors pulling flatbed trailers of civilians, a common means of transportation in many places (seems like intentional oversight of Intelligence reports if you ask me) – and that train crossing a bridge full of civilians – tsk tsk – and some of those errant million dollar laser guided missles landing in civilian areas – how my tongue clucks over that! Hmmmm! smacks of on-high authorization if you ask me! Rest assured there was some guffawing in the war room and sly winks when the old commannder in chief bill told his boys to end it as fast as they could. One can break the will of people to fight and resist in many ways, can’t they? But, to put a postive spin on it, at least those dead Serb civilians won’t be haunted with PTSD nightmares, will they? Some here are blinded by historical relevance – how about putting truman and FDR on trial inabsentia for fire bombing dresden germany and incinerating japanese at nagasaki and hiroshima? Gosh! I bet some of the survivors of those places wish they could have had leashes around their necks and been threatened with dogs and made to pile up naked and had their genitals laughed at. I just cant imagine citizens of a nation with the highest gun homicide rate on the planet doing such things to people – laughing at male genitals -how hideous!! What amazes me most is how on the one hand our troops in Iraq are victims of bushes war – oh our poor boys who enlisted are being killed – then the same victims become willing agents in atrocities in the next breath. You can’t have it both ways – the voters will not allow it.

By: yabonn

yabonn — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 14:44:13 +0000

goesh, I think you opened my eyes. The facts that the e.r. centers are full of bad things clearly proves that academics are wimps in an ivory tower, that torture in irak is ok after all, and that we should all vote bush-by-the-way. Shoulda known. “DUHHH!”, in your words.

By: rosa

rosa — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 13:28:33 +0000

robbo, the combination of “robbo” and “torture” yields 343 stories – you bad boy you. Of course, “rosa” and “torture” yields 77,300 stories – what a nasty creep I am! In short, you might try reading the stories. It’s 40,000 prisoners in Abu G, not 40,000 tortured. No one (credible) has claimed that every single prisoner through Abu G was tortured. I’m still waiting for a link that shows 40,000 tortured.

By: Goesh

Goesh — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 13:00:27 +0000

How to deter jihadists from melting the skin off your face with a suitcase nuke: Threaten them with incarceration in a controled climate environment with 3 good meals a day, a comfortable bed, exercise equipment, a spacious open-air yard, a fully stocked library, conjugal visits, television/VCRs/CDs, complete and free legal representation and medical care, an up to date law library, correspondence courses and a mosque. No wonder the 9/11 hijackers crashed the planes they hijacked with high tech box cutters – the awesome consequences of american justice were just too much to bear. But cheer up! there was no terrorism prior to george bush being in office.

By: Goesh

Goesh — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 12:47:02 +0000

You wanna’ see torture? Go to the nearest domestic violence shelter, and take your pick of the many thousand in America, then stop by some of the morgues and view the bodies of children battered to death here at home ( got any stats on these numbers??) and the gunshot victims, then stop off at the nearest ER and rape crisis center and interview some victims. All this tongue clucking over some soliders mistreating Iraqi prisoners makes me reach for the nearest bottle of pepto bismol. “we are better than that!” DUHHH! Some storm forth from the the academic trenches slinging moral diatribes, as if there were an audience that could be appreciative of your wisdom and insight – wake up! your audience is preoccupied at the funeral parlor and ER and crisis center and abuse shelter. Who was the philosopher who asked, ” what if i wrung my hands in anguish and nobody saw me?”

By: robbo

robbo — Fri, 18 Jun 2004 01:32:18 +0000

Rosa wrote, I’m a great googler, as a matter of fact. I hate wild goose chases, though. And finding factual support for 40,000 “tortured” would be one wild goose. I tried “40,000 torture abu” and came up with 2200 hits; several links on the first couple pages were relevant and credible. Googling just “40,000 torture,” one learns that “40,000” is a nice round number that’s pops up in many torture-related articles, from Korea to Indonesia to Iraq to the USA (40,000 survivors of foreign torture reportedly reside in the Mid-Atlantic Region, in case you’re wondering). And, according to PETA, the penalty for mistreating an elephant in Thailand is “a fine of not more than 40,000 baht.” Fascinating, I say.

By: q

Thu, 17 Jun 2004 21:57:37 +0000

The USA needs to consider how to improve a process which elects as president someone so underwhelming for the job. It sometimes seems that Bush is being run by Cheney. I can’t remember a vice-president having so much control.

By: jdw

jdw — Thu, 17 Jun 2004 21:38:15 +0000

Matt Weiner: And I wouldn’t be so confident that Kerry won’t go after Bush’s people; wasn’t investigating Iran-Contra one of his big causes? I think the political considerations are different for a Congressman and for a President. I think if he wants to go after Bush, it has to be immediately after he takes office. It seems like he’d be squandering a lot of political capital for very little political reward. That might be noble, but I don’t know if it would be wise. Also, if the Republicans still control Congress, I think it would be fair to expect that the impeachment proceedings would begin against him as soon as he started investigating Bush, which could make his entire presidency more difficult. Otherwise, he could probably put off the impeachment until after the midterm elections, which might be better. [And I think it’s a bit cynical to say that Kerry would want Bush’s powers—the Bush Administration has gone way beyond politics as usual.] I frankly think that’s the least cynical thing I’ve said.

By: q

Thu, 17 Jun 2004 21:31:19 +0000

It is a bit sad if the USA needs an ICC to sort out corruption. Whatever happened to “Separation of the Powers”?

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Thu, 17 Jun 2004 21:13:42 +0000

“The national reaction to the Abu Ghraib revelations has made perfectly clear that sebastian’s claim about the power – and, implicitly, the justice – of the American public is false.” What a profoundly stupid thing to say. If you are so mistrustful of the American public, there isn’t a single reason in the world to believe that we would allow the ICC to try any of our citizens even if we had signed onto the stupid court. But really we shouldn’t have worried. Europeans are so bad at international enforcement that there was never any real danger anyway. See for instance French disposal of the EU economic rules that they forced on smaller countries. See for example the European diplomatic ‘triumph’ regarding the Iranian nuclear program.

By: pepi

pepi — Thu, 17 Jun 2004 20:47:31 +0000

jdw – The US is a special case, though, because the rest of the world is rife with anti-Americanism, so if Americans were allowed to be tried by international courts they could be found guilty. If they actually did something, and unless those courts are a total sham. On the other hand, they couldn’t even find Milosevic guilty… If the Europeans had their way, the US couldn’t commit any war crimes. And how is that a bad thing? I don’t know what to think of the ICC issue. I’m not too keen on international courts myself. But I’m also not keen on the fact that often, the US military abroad has special treatment nobody else has. Not just about conventions or war crimes, but even just in case of accidents, like, for instance, a careless pilot from the nearby US base flying low crashing in a skilift killing tens of people, and getting away only with mild punishment internal to the army, instead of being tried in a civil court like any other civil pilot would have. Some of this being-above-the-law approach has contributed a bit of anti-american resentment of its own.

By: pepi

pepi — Thu, 17 Jun 2004 20:24:56 +0000

katherine: I agree, it’s two separate issues and it’s best to keep them separate – but the curious thing is… the Geneva conventions don’t need to be brought back because they’re there and the US still is a signatory member. That’s the most indefensible part at legal level. Demanding to remain a member while no longer acknowledging the duty to comply with what you’re a member to.

By: yabonn

yabonn — Thu, 17 Jun 2004 20:03:17 +0000

The last few months argue strongly that the US cannot always be relied on to observe its international law obligations I’d have thought educated people like froomkin would have treated that optimistic self image of the u.s. with a bit of caution. Of the kind you reserve for founding myth, or at least to these “not really true but useful nevertheless” type of things. But no. The u.s. are, unless proven otherwise, respectful of international laws, and it’s of course. National interests are for the black hats. I suppose i knew it before, but it’s a bit shocking to have it jumping to my face : they-do-really-believe-it. Bit scary to wonder how many more horrors before each and every university law professor is convinced that, after all, the u.s., despite its true attachment to a whole bag of ideals and everything “cannot always be relied on” ? Kinds of put in perspective the recent american diplomatic dysfunctionnalities too.