The Banality of Bush White House Evil ny times oped

[Mari333]

'The newly released Justice Department memos, like those before them, were not written by barely schooled misfits like England and Graner. John Yoo, Steven Bradbury and Jay Bybee graduated from the likes of Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Michigan and Brigham Young. They have passed through white-shoe law firms like Covington & Burling, and Sidley Austin.

Judge Bybee’s résumé tells us that he has four children and is both a Cubmaster for the Boy Scouts and a youth baseball and basketball coach. He currently occupies a tenured seat on the United States Court of Appeals. As an assistant attorney general, he was the author of the Aug. 1, 2002, memo endorsing in lengthy, prurient detail interrogation “techniques” like “facial slap (insult slap)” and “insects placed in a confinement box.”

He proposed using 10 such techniques “in some sort of escalating fashion, culminating with the waterboard, though not necessarily ending with this technique.” Waterboarding, the near-drowning favored by Pol Pot and the Spanish Inquisition, was prosecuted by the United States in war-crimes trials after World War II. But Bybee concluded that it “does not, in our view, inflict ‘severe pain or suffering.’ ”










http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/opinion/26rich.html

[underpants]

1. MUST READ-torture was for the war on Iraq NOT against terrorism

Just read this.

Frank Rich completes the circle that has, as far as I have read, not been put together throughout this entire week of discussion.

[SpiralHawk]

2. the Republicon 'family value' of torture is so perverted and immoral, so anti-Christian

"As you do unto the least, so you do unto me."

- Jesus Christ

[originalpckelly]

3. My children, those with no creativity are evil

We must help them become good
If only we could all do this

[Joe Chi Minh]

4. Prove it to us by undergoing it just ten times. What's a little duresse, if it doesn't amount to

"severe pain or suffering"? Is it used for some purpose other than coercion? Educational, maybe? But educational concerning what? Trivial annoyances? Why? Why would the CIA's enforcers concern themselves with educating people about what it feels like to be subjected to exotic forms of annoyance?

Maybe too much time on their hands and they have to meet targets. "We couldn't torture, but we've annoyed a number of 'em to death. And we're working on more. Course, if they want to tell us what we want to know, it'd be a heck of bonus, and still we're banking on that."

[MagickMuffin]

5. Nine Horses: The banality of evil

Nine Horses: The banality of evil; words and music by David Sylvian


I’ve got me a badge
A bright shiny badge
I’m painting the crest in yellow and blue

I’ve got me a club
An exclusive club
It doesn’t include a place for you

Hey…..hello neighbour
Hey…..hello neighbour, right you are

It’s in the way that you walk
All of the changes, all the mistakes
In the demands you constantly make

It’s in the way that you grieve
All of the loss
You don’t know when you’re better off
Or at what cost
You’ve got it good

The banality of evil

Benevolent mother
Smother the child
The benefactors are in denial

Hey…..hello neighbour
Hey…..hello neighbour, right you are

There was a time
Not so long ago
I was master of everything I surveyed
Yes, there was a time
We did it my way
We’ll do things my way

Benevolent mother
Smother the child
The perpetrators are in denial

The banality of evil

King of the castle
Room at the top
Off with their heads
Chop ‘em off

The banality of evil

Benevolent mother
Smother the child
The benefactors are in denial

The banality of evil

King of the castle
Room at the top
Off with their heads
Chop ‘em off

Hey…..hello neighbour

I don’t believe in what you believe
You skin is filthy
And your gods don’t look like god to me

But I want to touch you
Now that isn’t right
No, that can’t be right
But I want to touch you
You’re leading me on I know it

Hey…

King of the castle
More room at the top
All sorts allowed
Now the gloves are off

Hey….hello neighbour

Benevolent mother
Smother the child
The benefactors are in denial

The banality of evil

King of the castle
Room at the top
Off with their heads
Chop ‘em off

The banality of evil

Benevolent mother
Smother the child
The perpetrators are in denial

The banality of evil

King of the castle
Room at the top
Off with their heads
Chop ‘em off

The banality of evil

[xchrom]

6. recommend

[myrna minx]

7. This paragraph says it all:

Five years after the Abu Ghraib revelations, we must acknowledge that our government methodically authorized torture and lied about it. But we also must contemplate the possibility that it did so not just out of a sincere, if criminally misguided, desire to “protect” us but also to promote an unnecessary and catastrophic war. Instead of saving us from “another 9/11,” torture was a tool in the campaign to falsify and exploit 9/11 so that fearful Americans would be bamboozled into a mission that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda. The lying about Iraq remains the original sin from which flows much of the Bush White House’s illegality.

[Mari333]

8. yes, it does

I wanted to see an OpEd like this back then...but I had to be patient I guess..and wait, and wait, for the truth to come out..the wheels of the gods grind slowly but exceedingly well and all... I was impatient with the public sector because they didnt want to acknowledge it..and with the politicians for approving it..
when the truth is squelched for so long, one becomes bitter and angry and tired..
its refreshing to see the truth finally come forward..

[Karenina]

12. That IS the money quote.

[formercia]

9. “does not, in our view, inflict ‘severe pain or suffering.’ ”

What you mean WE, White man?

May we have an inclusive list of those who agree or agreed with that opinion?

Inquiring minds want to know.

[KharmaTrain]

10. If This Is Justification, We All Should Be Shamed...

The fact that someone in our government...the country my grandparents came to to escape the repression of Eastern Europe 100 years ago and now proffer those same actions is beyond comprehension. They came here based on the ideals of human rights and, more important, human decency. No matter how "evil" our enemies were, our values of freedom of speech and individual rights stood as our greatest weapon...not a waterboard or cattle prod.

There is NO justification for torture, period. Nothing, nothing, nothing. The more anyone tries to "justify" this the more they show how the blood on their own hands.

[mmonk]

11. This is important:

President Obama can talk all he wants about not looking back, but this grotesque past is bigger than even he is. It won’t vanish into a memory hole any more than Andersonville, World War II internment camps or My Lai. The White House, Congress and politicians of both parties should get out of the way. We don’t need another commission. We don’t need any Capitol Hill witch hunts. What we must have are fair trials that at long last uphold and reclaim our nation’s commitment to the rule of law.

-snip-

[barbtries]

13. definitely a must read

gawd it has been frustrating all these years. i'm on the edge of my seat waiting for the bushies' day of reckoning.