CIA lied to you

[Guinevere]

Where do those quotes come from LJ - there is no source.....

As for political motivation - if this report was truly politically motivated, I have to think it would have been released prior to the midterms.

[wesw]

wasn t he a klansman too....

[wesw]

I agree with sue, this should transcend partisan bickering. it s about our nation s very soul.

I still haven t looked up quotidian tho.....

[Guinevere]

Ordinary, mundane. Daily, too.

[wesw]

thank you.

[Guinevere]

Byrd wasn't just a member of the KKK, he was a Kleagle - some kind of leader. He refused to serve in the Army during WW2 because he thought he could come in contact with "inferior races." He also voted against the Civil Rights Act in 1964.

Later, he said those times and actions were his great regrets in life. I suppose you have to believe him, everyone gets at least a shot at forgiveness, but those are tough things to forgive.

[wesw]

I certainly believe in second chances too, and forgiveness.

[Lord Jim]

Another knock on Byrd was that he was a "chicken hawk" who was never in the military...

But that was completely unfair...

The fact is, Robert Byrd served with distinction in The War Of 1812...

[rubato]

Truman was a former Klansman and a self-identified racist and yet he had the moral insight to make the greatest contribution to civil rights since Lincoln and desegregate the military.

The entire process took much longer to complete but he initiated it at one stroke as an executive order. Modern Republicans would be having conniptions and wetting themselves to call it a 'power grab' and 'unconstitutional'.

yrs,
rubato

[wesw]

what was that Truman quote?

"we got all these damned niggers, might as well use em"

[rubato]

I will write so simply that even the most stupid might get it.

It has been suggested that torture in this case was justified by necessity. To say that it was necessary is to say that our existence was in peril. It is not an argument of necessity to say we have to prevent all injuries. Measured as a threat to our existence the 9-11 attacks are very very very small. They are so small that the argument of necessity is void.

And the example of Washington makes it clearer; he said that we will not do evil and use torture even if we are in legitimate peril.

Torture was not justified in WWII when we really were in a fight for our lives.


It is very simple.


The attack on the Murrah building caused about half as many deaths per terrorist*, many more injured, and I believe more damage per terrorist and yet no one said we should torture McVeigh or Nicols, even as retribution.


Demagogues use fear to manipulate and control people. We should try to maintain some sense of proportion so as not to be manipulated into supporting evil and degrading ourselves.


yrs,
rubato



* Only counting the 19 in the planes. If all the others who financed and supported them are counted Okla. city probably had more.

[Lord Jim]

Rube discoursing on history...

Thank you Boris Kearns-Badwind...

(I don't suppose you know anything about how Washington dealt with deserters, and how by modern standards that would make him a war criminal...what a silly question...of course you don't)

Coming up next, my parrot Max will present a detailed analysis of "The God Particle"....

[oldr_n_wsr]

Coming up next, my parrot Max will present a detailed analysis of "The God Particle"....

I prefer to call it "My Higher Power Particle" but am looking forward to Max's analysis.

[wesw]

if he get s it wrong, god has 42 other types of parrots to turn to....

[MajGenl.Meade]

To assert some kind of moral equivalence between legally established military penalties for desertion and the torture of captives to obtain information would be like... like... well, it would be like suggesting that rubato and LJ are equally as obnoxious.

Which of course cannot be the case.

The US military/government did eventually realize that the penalties for desertion (other than firing squad and imprisonment) were too draconian. The history of the armed forces in Europe and the USA has been one of gradual conformity to the general standards of society, themselves becoming more civilized, in regard to sanctioned punishments.

rubato's most recent post is largely correct. It would have been strengthened by pointing out that McVeigh and Nichols were also not tortured in order to find the accomplices, Michael and Lori Fortier.

I have to reply separately to rubato though (sorry wesw - it does mean consecutive posts. Probably)

[wesw]

I don t mind at all meade, let your hair down, and let your freedom flag fly....

[MajGenl.Meade]

rubato. I did state that Pearl Harbor was a tactical success but a strategic miss. I am fully aware that the aircraft carriers were at sea - had they not been, PH might have been a strategic success as well. Although that is doubtful.

I take "minor" attack to mean the actual physical effect and extent of the attack upon the intended target country. 9/11 and PH were in the nature of raids, although in the case of the former there was no chance of the perpetrators retreating to safety afterward.

However, you classify PH as 'not minor'' apparently on the basis of the logistical effort and size of the forces used to carry it out. On that basis, and using your comparative numbers method, given the size of the terrorist organization and the complexity of the operation required to capture and control four aircraft with a 75% success rate to target, the 9/11 attacks are equally 'not minor'. Pound for pound, the terrorists equaled or bettered the work of the Japanese Imperial forces.

None of this is to express the slightest approval of these attacks, which were of enormous significance to the lives and histories of so many people here and abroad.

Both were a big deal because people regard them as being a big deal. (If there was a big deal but no people were around to be aware of it, would it be a big deal?)

[Big RR]

Jim--

Big RR, you do realize this is the same committee that in a bipartisan report found that the NSA programs have provided essential intel for foiling terrorist plots, that the programs received intensive oversight from all three branches of government, and that the information leaked about the programs by The Traitor Snowden had done great harm to US security...

As I recall from the discussion we had about that, (not too long ago) you were far less sanguine in terms of accepting that report, then you are today in accepting this one...

In fact, as I recall, you essentially said that you assumed they were lying unless they provided publicly the evidence to back up their conclusions...

Curiously, you don't seem to be applying the same standard here...

I certainly don't want to misrepresent your position on that so if you feel I have, please say so and I will do a search and provide the quotes from that exchange...

Indeed I do recognize it was the same committee, which I believe bolsters my conclusion. the committee, IMHO, seemed all too willing to say the NSA surveillance provided valuable intelligence (a position I dispute absent evidence), but found no such evidence here. I'm sure you'll claim it was political because this report dealt with W and the previous one with Obama, but again, I see no evidence. Nonetheless, in both reports I think it is essential that those who claim that valuable information was obtained provide the proof; absent this proof, the proposition is mere rhetoric.

Further, the committee had access to contemporaneous documentation of what was done and what was obtained, and reached the conclusion; the minority and any others are free to refute it with evidence, none of which appears to be forthcoming. I'd rather see a report based on the contemporaneous records of the acts than the statements of carefully rehearsed spin doctors, sorry, officials.

We'll save the debate for the morality of torture/enhanced interrogation until later.

[rubato]

".....

However, you classify PH as 'not minor'' apparently on the basis of the logistical effort and size of the forces used to carry it out. ... "

Do try to make some slight feeble effort at logical sense. Pearl Harbor was the opening attack in a war between a well-armed and trained adversary, the Empire of Japan, who actually could cause serious harm or even partial destruction of the United States. 9-11 was done by a tiny group, relatively, who never had the slightest chance of threatening US interests to the degree that the Empire of Japan did and when you factor in the alliances of Japan with Germany and Italy there is no comparison on earth.

9-11 was the most Al Qaeda could do. Pearl Harbor was just the beginning of what the Japanese could, and did, do both to us and even more to the British. Nanking, the Pilipines, Singapore &c &c &c.


yrs,
rubato

[wesw]

hey!!!

I don t have an Etc. key?