I wonder if Jay Bybee would have been confirmed if the Senate had known that he authored this.
Michael Froomkin’s analysis of Torture Memo 2 is a good place to get an overview before going on to read the full document.
Links via The Gamer’s Nook and the Washington Monthly.
I thought we fought WWII to get rid of this kind of stuff:
The defense offered by the GOP’s local functionaries is that the soldiers asked to attend the rally “so they could show their support for their commander-in-chief before getting shipped out to fight the war on terrorism.”
And, of course, they were also given those t-shirts to wear. So at least they weren’t in uniform.
So how could anyone – except maybe some pinko terrorist lover – complain about something so innocuous?
Well I wouldn’t – if not for the fact that we already have several thousand years of history to draw on for examples of what happens when the armed forces of a powerful state dabble in politics – or, worse still, allow themselves to be transformed into the personal shocktroops of a political leader or party.
Your assignment: Read the original news article and the rest of Bilmon’s long post.
Study question: What is the role of the military in a free society?
From Josh Marshall:
Meanwhile, President Bush’s website also showed lots of pictures of John Kerry caught, as you might imagine, in poses suggesting buffoonery, arrogance, indecision and the like. What the GWB website didn’t have any of was pictures of George W. Bush.
Now, earlier today I noted how the Bush campaign has replaced the front page of their website with a Reagan tribute, with a huge picture of the late president backgrounded with flags, accompanied by links to a Reagan tribute video, links to President Reagan’s most famous speeches and statement of his praise for President Reagan by President Bush.
That’s the Bush website now. (You really need to see it to get the picture.)
Now, how many days of leaving the site that way will it take before people start to see the obvious: that President Bush’s campaign staffers believe that pushing their own guy isn’t a particularly good political strategy and that bashing Kerry or grasping on to Reagan nostalgia is far preferable?
Seems to me that a picture, a brief statement, and a link to a tribute page would be about right. As it is, if you look real hard you might find the link to the campaign page.
Jim Henley has it right:
HOWEVER. President Bush is no one’s idea of a legal mind. He may have initiated the project that became the memo, but he didn’t draft the thing. High-level government lawyers, most of them undoubtedly political appointees, did that. What that means is that there is systemic corruption in the Republican Party as an institution – “Bush’s Willing Torturers” we might call them. These are people that came up with the idea that the Constitutional phrase “he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” meant
authority to set aside the laws is “inherent in the president.”
They represent a deadly danger to the American system and they are multiple. It’s not one guy somewhere, it’s a movement. Until the Republican Party roots them out, that Party is the enemy, not just of libertarians, but of anyone who values individual freedom and republican government. From the standpoint of liberty, there can no longer be any justification for preferring the Republicans to the Democrats.
Folks, we should not have to wait until November to get rid of these folks. If congress does not act, if the Republicans don’t come to their senses and choose someone else then the rest of us should just say no. A few million in the steets every day should do the trick.
rumsfeld says:
The troubling unknown, he said, is whether the extremists — whom he termed ”zealots and despots” bent on destroying the global system of nation-states — are turning out newly trained terrorists faster than the United States can capture or kill them.His remarks also elicited commentary:
”It’s quite clear to me that we do not have a coherent approach to this,” Rumsfeld said at an international security conference.
His remarks showed a level of concern about the long-term direction of the U.S.-led global fight against terrorism that Rumsfeld rarely addresses in public.
Should we put this quote on every campaign web-site, bumper sticker and campaign commercial going forward?The Poor Man:
Heavens, yes.
The Bush Administration appears to be in the grips of irrational Bush-hatredBrad Delong:
If even Donald Rumsfeld believes that Al Qaeda is growing stronger, who is left to defend the Bush administration’s conduct of the War on Terror?Oliver Willis
The Failure Of Donald RumsfeldPessimist at The Left Coaster at the end of a long commentary:
I can’t believe he said this.
Rumsfeld fears U.S. losing long-term fight against terror
It’s time for another regime change. Here in the United States of America. This November if not sooner.Stageleft:
An interesting phrase given who he works for….. anything less than complete confidence and unswerving loyalty to the administration line isn’t high on the top 10 list of ways to get yourself invited to a certain ranch in Texas.Yep, rummie should have resigned when he had the chance.