Sunday, April 26, 2009

Extreme BDS at the New York Times

Frank Rich has a laughable article up called, "The Banality of Bush White House Evil." All you have to do is look at the title to know you are dealing with a complete nutcase, deranged by his insane hatred of former President Bush. Rich, who sneered at the label "Axis of Evil" when applied to Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Iran and North Korea, has no problem calling U.S. efforts to gain  intelligence "evil." They couldn't just be mistaken, normal problems with trying to fight an unconventional war where intelligence is at a premium, or even just bad mistakes in judgment. No, they are pure evil. Not only that, but Rich is pushing a ridiculous conspiracy theory as well,
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.
Look at all the unfounded assumptions and blanket assertions. You can tell Rich actually believes this stuff. He's a prime example of why the left can't be taken seriously in their sniveling and whining about torture, and their hysterical cries for show trials. Bush Derangement Syndrome renders them completely incapable of having any sort of rational perspective on almost any issues involving the Bush administration. Even now, with Bush out of power, the effects of BDS continue to ravage the left. Maybe there is no cure.

5 comments:

  1. Are you saying that torture is a good thing or a bad thing.

    I'm a US Army veteran, and I say it's a bad thing. I say that if people in our country tortured prisoners, they should go to prison themselves, which is less than what we did to the German and Japanese torturers. We hanged them for "mere" waterboarding.

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  2. If the 3 - yes, only 3! - cases of waterboarding resulted in gathering intel, or even prevented another attack, then it was worth it. The emasculating of the American intelligence agencies by the Obama administration is playing right into the hands of the terrorist organizations. Obama's policies are the equivalent of taking a dog to get neutered. God help us.

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  3. Repack,

    "Are you saying that torture is a good thing or a bad thing."

    A bad thing that might sometimes be necessary or useful, depending on who is being tortured, and the overall situation. I am not against torture in all cases. Known terrorists should be entitled to no rights. If we need to torture them in order to extract information, then we should reserve that option.

    "I'm a US Army veteran, and I say it's a bad thing"

    I respect the fact that you are a veteran, but that's irrelevant unless you tortured some prisoners or have some other unique personal knowledge of the situation. And I'm against the use of torture by the military.

    "I say that if people in our country tortured prisoners, they should go to prison themselves"

    Well, you are entitled to your opinion. I strongly disagree. The torture of people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Zubaydeh was justifiable.

    "which is less than what we did to the German and Japanese torturers. We hanged them for "mere" waterboarding."

    Different situation. Who gets tortured matters. And we don't go back and prosecute members of previous administrations for questionable things they did during wars. Neither do we prosecute people for carrying out what they were told were legal orders -- approved at the highest levels with bipartisan support.

    Leigh,

    Exactly. Even if you accept that Bush made a large number of mistakes, that doesn't mean we need to go so far the other way that we cripple our intelligence efforts with legalistic restrictions.

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  4. I won't defend Rich in general, but there is some evidence to support the quote cited.

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  5. One man giving his uncorroborated version of events isn't exactly much evidence. And obviously if there were links between Al Qaeda and Saddam, it would be something we would want to know. Just because it would also be politically convenient doesn't mean that was the only reason to explore that angle.

    If Rich's picture of the Bush administration were actually true, they would have just tortured a false confession of Al Qaeda-Saddam links out of the prisoners. We know torture works very well for that. Since that wasn't done, it tends to indicate that they were instead trying to gain intelligence in order to protect the country -- whether you approve of their methods or not.

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