Newt Watch - Torture Edition

Dec 1st, 2011

A few days ago, Newt Gingrich assured his followers that, as President, he would torture. To great applause, he declared that "waterboarding is by every technical rule not torture." Watch the clip below. It is a typically greasy appearance by Newt, full of red meat about a "ticking time bomb" scenario and complete with a dig at the ACLU.

Ben Arbruster fires back:

"Not only is the so-called “ticking time bomb” scenario Gingrich refers to a red herring, waterboarding actually is illegal under international law because it is considered a torture technique. Last year, the U.N.’s Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez said waterboarding is “immoral and illegal,” and his predecessor agrees."

Sullivan is justifiably enraged:

"The problem is not caprice. The problem is torture. Waterboarding by every conceivable rule is torture. No court has ever found otherwise in any country that adheres to the Geneva Conventions or the UN Coinvention on Torture signed by Ronald Reagan. Several federal court opinions define waterboarding as torture. The US government executed Japanese military leaders following World War II for waterboarding. It was judged torture in the 1926 Mississippi Supreme Court case, which Gingrich as a "historian" should know by now. It is featured in Cambodia's Museum of Torture to commemorate the abuses of the Khmer Rouge. As the UN Rapporteur on torture has said:

I don’t think there is any question, any serious question. I mean it’s a question of severity. If you think that waterboarding is not severe mistreatment you don’t really know what waterboarding is. … I mean if you then redefine upwards the severity standard to say that it’s only severe if it’s organ failure or death, then you know you’re really very clearly distorting the sense of the words and you know words have to be interpreted in treaty language, they have to be interpreted in their plain meaning and their plain meaning couldn’t be more clear in the case of waterboarding.

This is not an opinion. It is a fact. What Gingrich has said is untrue. It cannot stand. What the last president authorized was torture, a war crime under domestic and international law."

Here You Go, Dishonest Coward

August 6th, 2011
by F. Grey Parker

Dana Loesch

In the heady days which followed the Christianist assault on a gathering of youngsters at a youth-in-government Summer camp in Norway, there was a staggering movement by America's rightist Islamophobes to deflect blame.

Any potential blame. So many ugly and misguided articles were published that it was simply stunning.

Nothing, however, was as convoluted as a piece which Dana Loesch posted over at Andy's Joint.

You see, it wasn't enough for Dana to join the right wing chorus of those saying the killer "was not really a Christian." It wasn't enough for Dana to deny that venomous right wing pronouncements might actually have had a real world impact on a warped mind. It wasn't even enough for her to simply get behind all the circled wagons amongst her fellow rightists and make self-serving claims of "censorship" and conservative "victimhood" to avoid a discussion about the power of rhetoric.

John McCain Versus Torture

May 15th, 2011

Joe Conason wrote a splendid piece this weekend regarding Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) spirited and righteous condemnation of the liars and criminals (especially Thiessen and Yoo) from the W administration and their crude attempts to capitalize on the death of Osama Bin Laden.

I have published more than a few pieces (HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE) since lauching this blog about these sick and depraved violations of American principles. Indeed, this issue was the primary catalyst for me starting The Hand in the first place.

I have also lamented Sen. McCain's silence over the last few years. But now he has, at least to a degree, redeemed himself. Seriously, he shut the FOX lie machine down. That's no small thing in this day and age.

From Conason's piece via Truthout:

"For the longest time, a certain admirable, independent senator from Arizona disappeared from public life, replaced by an irresponsible, opportunistic and occasionally demagogic figure, who seemed to have been warped by his presidential ambitions and his disappointment in losing. But John McCain has now returned, just in time to refute the sinister attempt by his fellow Republicans to justify torture as the instrument of Osama bin Laden's demise.

During the last administration, even as a supporter of the Iraq invasion and the "war on terror," McCain broke ranks with his party to protest the worst excesses of the George W. Bush presidency. In one of the most memorable moments of the otherwise desultory Republican primary debates in 2008, he cited the Constitution, the Geneva Conventions and American military tradition to upbraid Mitt Romney for waffling on the issue of waterboarding. "This is what America is all about," he said indignantly. "This is a defining issue."

With every right-wing enabler from John Yoo to Marc Thiessen to Liz Cheney suddenly stepping forward to suggest that that the death of bin Laden absolves Bush-era criminality, it is refreshing to hear McCain's clear, strong voice of opposition. The torture advocates have claimed that the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a high-ranking leader in al-Qaida and an alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attack, caused him to reveal the identity of a courier whose trail led, almost seven years later, to the hideout in Abbotabad, Pakistan.

McCain is having none of this nonsense."

Neither are we, Mr. Senator. Neither are we.

It's Still Torture

May 6th, 2011

Yesterday, I reposted an old column as a little push back against the outright liars and revisionists from the Bush era who are hyping the "torture got Osama" meme. It's totally unsurprising that FOX is parroting their talking points and repeating their falsehoods.



Andrew Sullivan kept up the pressure as he has been for some time with an analysis of why it's so important to the torturers to defend themselves now:

"So let us be very clear. The war criminal Dick Cheney presided over the worst lapse in national security since Pearl Harbor, resulting in the deaths of more than 3,000 people. This rank incompetent failed to get bin Laden at Tora Bora, and then dragged the US on false pretenses into a war in Iraq, empowering Iran's dictatorship, and killing another 5,000 more Americans on a wild goose chase. He presided over the deaths of more than 8,000 Americans, and tens of thousands of Iraqis during his criminally incompetent years in office.

On the other hand, the man who abolished torture as soon as he took office, Barack Obama, captured and killed Osama bin Laden, and captured a massive trove of intelligence, more than two years later. No Americans died in the operation.

What on earth are we debating? How have these delusional maniacs managed to even get us onto this turf? Because they have to. Because when the full truth of these past years are fully in focus, they will be revealed as some of the greatest criminals ever to have wielded power in America."

And We Can't Say ANYTHING

Feb 31st, 2011

Abuse by U.S. Forces Abu Ghraib 2003

There was a time when reportage like this from Raw Story about a puppet-state could legitimately be met very differently by the U.S. Government. Not anymore. Now that we have become what we beheld, what can we say? 

"BAGHDAD — Security forces linked to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki are operating a "secret detention site" and elite teams are torturing detainees at a separate facility, Human Rights Watch charged on Tuesday.

The New York-based watchdog's claims come a week after the Los Angeles Times reported some detainees at a prison in the Iraqi capital's heavily fortified Green Zone had been abused and held without charge for up to two years, charges Baghdad denies."

The Post's New Low

Oct 14th, 2010
by F. Grey Parker

Tony Perkins - Anti-Gay Activist

One has to wonder what the editorial staff at the Washington Post has been thinking over the last year or so. They've given a regular forum to torture advocate Marc Thiessen. Recently, Dinesh D'Souza was granted space to regurgitate his lunacy about our country being "ruled" by some African-rooted revenge fantasy. Now, in the wake of a rash of suicides amongst young gay Americans, they've made sure to give equal time to radical anti-gay activist Tony Perkins.


Jarret Barrios fires back in the WaPo's "On faith" section:


"We called the Post out for their decision to let Perkins do this. The Post told us, via Twitter: "we're working to cover both sides. Earlier, we hosted Dan Savage of It Gets Better in a live chat."

Yes, you read that right. "Both sides."

The Washington Post - one of the most respected news sources in our country's history - is telling a nation full of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender children, that their lives are up for debate."

Frankly, Barrios is too easy on them. Giving Perkins a forum in this discussion is like giving an Op-Ed to the Klan during a debate over interracial marriage.

Perkins wrote:

"Some homosexuals may recognize intuitively that their same-sex attractions are abnormal--yet they have been told by the homosexual movement, and their allies in the media and the educational establishment, that they are "born gay" and can never change. This--and not society's disapproval--may create a sense of despair that can lead to suicide."

This kind of thinking should stay in the hate-pamphlets where it belongs. What is the Post trying to achieve? Are they seeking the same divide between reality and fantasy that we see within the Wall Street Journal's reportage and editorial divisions, respectively? Is it that they really don't care how outlandish a piece is that appears under their masthead as long as it get's "hits?"

Barrios sums it up:

"Technically, the Post is correct when it says it is covering "both sides" of the scourge of anti-gay bullying.

But one of those sides belongs to the bully himself."

An Interesting Spat

Oct 13th, 2010


Anyone concerned with the dreary wave of anti-intellectualism from the right over the last year should read Anne Applebaum's piece in yesterday's Washington Post. Her perspective:


"These modern meritocrats are clearly not admired, or at least not for their upward mobility, by many Americans. On the contrary"... "they are resented as "elitist." Which is at some level strange: To study hard, to do well, to improve yourself -- isn't that the American dream? The backlash against graduates of "elite" universities seems particularly odd given that the most elite American universities have in the past two decades made the greatest effort to broaden their student bodies."


Seems straightforward enough. Apparently, Jonah Goldberg wasn't going to take this sitting down. He has picked a fight with Applebaum and launched a defense of the new-stupid. His piece is an exemplar of the situational ethics that have come to define his work.


"Applebaum doesn’t seem to comprehend that it is not status-class anxiety that is driving the main critique of the elite. It is that this particular elite is hellbent on bossing the country around that will make America less meritocratic." Italics his.


Goldberg is stipulating that this most recent wave of disrespect for the intellectual class is okay because it is being directed at his ideological enemies. At least he is consistent. This sort of argument makes perfect sense coming from a committed torture apologist. 


Applebaum fires back:


"Goldberg seems to think the anti-elitist rhetoric which is in wide use at the moment (the subject of my column) is acceptable because it is aimed at a particular elite: the liberals, the Obamas, “a very specific and self-styled elite.” He should listen harder, because in fact the rhetoric is far more sweeping than that, encompassing not only liberals but anyone with higher education.  Sarah Palin told O’Reilly that Americans are seeking to rid themselves of “spineless” people with an “Ivy League Education.”  Glenn Beck has mocked “the Ivy League” and people with degrees at great length. Christine O’Donnell’s political ad (the one which begins “I didn’t go to Yale…”) doesn’t attack “liberals who went to Yale.”  It attacks anyone who went to Yale."


Jonah hasn't responded to the response yet. We eagerly await watching him dig his hole deeper.

The Continuing Rebuttal of Marc Thiessen

March 10th, 2010

Matthew Alexander, a former senior military interrogator who publishes under a pseudonym for security reasons, has written a caustic review of Marc Thiessen's recently released and garishly pro-torture manifesto:

"My gut reaction on reading Marc Thiessen's new book, Courting Disaster, was: "Why is a speechwriter who's never served in the military or intelligence community acting as an expert on interrogation and national security?"

Certainly, everyone is entitled to a voice in the debate over the lawfulness and efficacy of President Bush's abusive interrogation program, regardless of qualifications. But if you're not an expert on a subject, shouldn't you interview experts before expressing an opinion? Instead, Thiessen relies solely on the opinions of the CIA interrogators who used torture and abuse and are thus most vulnerable to prosecution for war crimes."

As Thiessen continues his attacks on not just the rule of law but traditional morality as well, another voice has added itself to his growing chorus of detractors. This one is conservative author and editor, Conor Friedersdorf who argues that it is irresponsible for editors to even publish his work for it's lack of quality:

"The readers who propelled him onto the New York Times bestseller list can be forgiven if they’re not knowledgeable about United States law, the military code of conduct, or devastating counterarguments that require a bit of outside knowledge. But the editors who willingly publish this man again and again, despite the poor quality of his work and his inability to answer his strongest critics, are being negligent and unprofessional."

Thiessen, on The Daily Show last night, was skewered:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Exclusive - Marc Thiessen Extended Interview Pt. 1
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It's Called Torture

March 6th, 2010


In a case that could prove to be dynamite in the Torture Debate,  US District Judge Wayne Andersen ruled that the torture claims of two US citizens who served as contractors in Iraq may go forward in their suit against former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Again, the allegation is that two United States citizens, one a Navy veteran, were tortured by our own forces.


From the linked story:


"The men claimed they were subjected to sleep and food deprivation, threats of violence, actual violence (emphasis added) and prolonged solitary confinement, according to yesterday’s ruling. Andersen said if those claims were true, “a court might plausibly determine that the conditions of confinement were torturous.” "

There Aren't Different Versions Of The Truth

Feb 19th, 2010

by F. Grey Parker

On Friday November 12th 1948, General Kenji Doihara, Baron Kōki Hirota, General Seishirō Itagaki, General Heitarō Kimura, General Iwane Matsui, General Akira Muto, General Hideki Tōjō were sentenced to death for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Primary amongst the actions for which they had been convicted were the torturous methods with which they interrogated prisoners. One of the principle tools was called the "water cure" otherwise known as waterboarding.