Trump and his cabinet/buffoonery- Get your bunkers ready!

[visionary]

I will say, Haspel has support from a pretty diverse and well-respected group of people (the administration and some of their lackies' bizarre attempts attacking criticism aside) and did make some fairly strong statements against her using enhanced interrogation in the future, though some of her responses were lacking or seemed naive.  I'm not super against her getting through, though the thought of Trump ordering her to do something she may already have the temptation to do makes me nervous.

[TheGreatBuzz]

2 minutes ago, Momma There Goes That Man said:

can we all take this to the torture thread 

We have a torture thread?  Is it for discussing the morality of it or just sharing ideas on the most creative way to do it?

 

 

In seriousness though, I am kind of done with it.  My point was that it was a bad question to ask.  I think the discussion has run it's course and whatever opinions are still had are unlikely to change at this point.

[visionary]

 

 

 

[visionary]

 

 

Jesus Christ. 

 

[RedskinsFan44]

13 minutes ago, visionary said:

I will say, Haspel has support from a pretty diverse and well-respected group of people (the administration and some of their lackies' bizarre attempts attacking criticism aside) and did make some fairly strong statements against her using enhanced interrogation in the future, though some of her responses were lacking or seemed naive.  I'm not super against her getting through, though the thought of Trump ordering her to do something she may already have the temptation to do makes me nervous.

I think she is probably as good as we are going to get out of Trump. The danger comes from the top, he will not nominate someone less likely to follow his directives than her. At least she is someone with extensive knowledge and experience.

[Larry]

40 minutes ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

Even if it happens at a blacksite in Thailand?  What law is broken?

 

One of the things that really frustrated me, back when we had this discussion last time, was the incredible dishonesty of some of the arguments used.  And this is at least close to one of the biggest.  

 

If it's illegal to do it in Phoenix, then it's illegal to do it in Thailand.  

 

There were a whole lot of attempts to try to pull a "Well, the Constitution doesn;t apply" scenarios.  

 

It only applies to citizens.  

Only in the US.

Only to civilians.

Not to terrorists.  

Not when we're at war.  

 

And I would weep, every time a new attempt to employ that line would be used.  

 

Because, the person who's making it?  He's not really trying to say that the Constitution doesn't exist.  He's really trying to claim that, when <Condition X> exists, then we enter this mythical situation in which 

 

1)  The parts of the constitution that say the government can't do something, vanish like smoke.

2)  And the parts that give the government power, expand to grant unlimited power.  

 

I point out that the Constitution is not a document that specifies what can or can't be done to US citizens (if they're within the US, and we're not at war, and the President hasn't declared them to be special, and whatever other exceptions people want to invent).  It's a document that specifies what the government can and cannot do.  

 

The phrase I invented, at the time, was "The constitution does not apply to Ossamma bin Laden.  It applies to George W. Bush."  

 

Moving the interrogation room to a different location does not make any action suddenly moral, or legal, or anything else.  

[TheGreatBuzz]

4 minutes ago, Larry said:

 

One of the things that really frustrated me, back when we had this discussion last time, was the incredible dishonesty of some of the arguments used.  And this is at least close to one of the biggest.  

 

 

Just to be clear, I said it was a joke made because of the exact thing you listed.  Don't want you to think I was actually using that as a justification.

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[visionary]

 

[LadySkinsFan]

I'd resign. Mother****ing Trump.

[Larry]

4 minutes ago, visionary said:

 

 

 

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

1 hour ago, Momma There Goes That Man said:

can we all take this to the torture thread 

This one?

 

[Momma There Goes That Man]

4 hours ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

We have a torture thread?  Is it for discussing the morality of it or just sharing ideas on the most creative way to do it?

 

 

In seriousness though, I am kind of done with it.  My point was that it was a bad question to ask.  I think the discussion has run it's course and whatever opinions are still had are unlikely to change at this point.

 

The torture thread is any thread in the stadium 

2 hours ago, Sacks 'n' Stuff said:

This one?

 

Damn, beat me to it 

[Gallen5862]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/republicans-fill-court-seat-they-denied-to-obama-for-6-years/ar-AAx4Xba?ocid=spartanntp

 

Republicans Fill Court Seat They Denied To Obama For 6 Years

 

WASHINGTON ― The Senate voted Thursday to confirm Michael Brennan to a lifetime seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit ― a vacancy that Republicans prevented President Barack Obama from filling for six years.

 

The vote, 49 to 46, was entirely partisan.

 

Until now, the seat was the nation’s longest circuit court vacancy. It was empty since January 2010, and it had been up to Wisconsin’s two senators to work with the White House to fill it. The reason it went unfilled for so long largely came down to one person: Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).

 

Obama nominated Victoria Nourse to the seat in July 2010. Johnson denied her a confirmation hearing for all of 2011 by refusing to turn in his so-called blue slip, a Senate tradition whereby home-state senators have the ability to stop or advance a judicial nominee in the Judiciary Committee. Nourse withdrew her nomination in early 2012, calling the system “broken.

[Cooked Crack]

 

[AsburySkinsFan]

These people are pure garbage.

I’m telling you, THIS is how you make people lifelong enemies of a political party. But they don’t give a damn because they are in power now.

 

Democrats, Independents, and Moderate Republicans if you don’t get off your asses and vote for viable candidates who will shift power away from these ****s then don’t EVER complain again.

[Llevron]

 

 

[Bang]

10 hours ago, visionary said:

 

 

This would be the second time he has floated this out there, the first being when he congratulated Xi on naming himself president for life and saying we could do with something like that here.

 

First step is to rig 2020. Then this comes in.

He is priming the cretins to support it.

Better hope they are smarter than that.

 

~Bang

 

 

[tshile]

11 hours ago, visionary said:

We should not compare ourselves to terrorists.  We don’t go by their moral or legal code and to say, ‘well we’re still better than Al Qaeda or ISIS’ is a ridiculously lowered standard.

 

Also I seriously doubt we only mistreated a few terrorist high ups.  In addition to the enhanced interrogation/torture we illegally detained many random people, and humiliated various prisoners and created a dangerous and pervasive culture that hurt us very badly around the world and still does to this day.  Plus it makes it more likely for others to use it on us and easier to justify the usage (fairly or unfairly).

 

I’m not interested in moral high ground when it comes to terrorists. I’m not interested in norms, or what others think of us. I’m interested in stopping them from sending young girls into sex slavery, from flying planes into buildings, from bombing markets while people shop.

 

im fine with the rest you clinging to your moral high ground when places are shot up and people are run over while standing on the sidewalk. When journalists are bombed for reporting on a bombing. I understand why you all do that. 

 

I, on the other hand, am past it. I’m more interested in destroying them, than being happy with my morals. I’m capable of holding on to my morals with everything else in life, and suspending them for this one dispicible plague on our entire world for the time being. I’m not fearful of some bull**** slippery slope of becoming just like them. 

 

“More likely for them to use it on us” 

They’ve got their motives and marching orders and it has **** all to do with what we do or don’t do. We’ve been fighting them for almost two decades with one hand tied behind our back, playing nice and caring about hearts and minds, and it’s gotten is no where in the big picture. 

 

I also am capable of being ok with select, special treatment of someone like KSM and being angry with the same, unnecessary treatment of an underling for which there is no true value for us in the grand scheme of things. 

 

Im tired of this demand that we treat people who are responsible for the most heinous acts possible like the rest of the human race. They are not people. They are animals. Anyone who’s moral standing allows them to put a 10 year old girl into sex slavery, or lock a person in a cage and burn them alive solely because of their religion, needs to treated like the heinous animal they are. 

 

You all all can keep your moral high ground in this one. Im positive that’s the way we’ll stay. So we will continue to get to see the results it yields.

[AsburySkinsFan]

35 minutes ago, Bang said:

 

Better hope they are smarter than that.

 

I’m sorry, have we met?

[RedskinsFan44]

Never mind, fake news.

 

This was posted as a Mother's Day event at WH and lack of diversity noted. Actually an officer's wives club with surprising lack of diversity:
https://www.afoscdc.com/jafowl.html

 

Damn, the twitter post was photoshopped to remove the one black lady in the back:

https://mobile.twitter.com/RonaldKlain/status/994807951679508481

Aint the internet grand.

 

 

[Riggo-toni]

[LD0506]

11 minutes ago, tshile said:

I’m not interested in moral high ground when it comes to terrorists. I’m not interested in norms, or what others think of us. I’m interested in stopping them from sending young girls into sex slavery, from flying planes into buildings, from bombing markets while people shop.

 

im fine with the rest you clinging to your moral high ground when places are shot up and people are run over while standing on the sidewalk. When journalists are bombed for reporting on a bombing. I understand why you all do that. ......etc.

 

And I get this, really not losing a ton of sleep about how much sleep terrorist supporters are losing, etc., but my main issue here is a pragmatic one, how well does this work? Time and time again it has been shown that torture (or whatever other Orwellian doublespeak we're using today) really isn't all that effective. If you could guarantee that you'd get timely accurate info to stop an attack then as far as I'm concerned you could take 'em apart like Gerald Butler in Law Abiding Citizen, but you can't. Subjects say whatever they can to stop/reduce the pain, lies, truths, half truths, half lies, it doesn't matter, and there really is no way to tell for sure what is or isn't "true". And if it doesn't work what other rationalizations can you use to support it? You end up dehumanizing your own for a microscopic ROI.

 

 

[zoony]

Hysteria still in full force.  Everyone reading headlines and two sentnce story fragments and losing their damn minds, going on 2 years now.

 

Cant wait to see how everyone reacts to the midterms.  Stay safe, everyone

[AsburySkinsFan]

2 minutes ago, LD0506 said:

 

And I get this, really not losing a ton of sleep about how much sleep terrorist supporters are losing, etc., but my main issue here is a pragmatic one, how well does this work? Time and time again it has been shown that torture (or whatever other Orwellian doublespeak we're using today) really isn't all that effective. If you could guarantee that you'd get timely accurate info to stop an attack then as far as I'm concerned you could take 'em apart like Gerald Butler in Law Abiding Citizen, but you can't. Subjects say whatever they can to stop/reduce the pain, lies, truths, half truths, half lies, it doesn't matter, and there really is no way to tell for sure what is or isn't "true". And if it doesn't work what other rationalizations can you use to support it? You end up dehumanizing your own for a microscopic ROI.

 

 

When fighting terrorism against groups that use religious and emotional fire to rally recruits, torturing ONLY makes their jobs easier. All you are doing is feeding them proof that you are really as bad as you say you are. And I care less that ISIS does it, because once they’ve rationalized in their heads that we are truly evil then their actions are legitimized in their eyes. 

Nation building through bombs, despots and torture has never worked. You will not chanfe the minds of those radicalized by your tactics.