Who will Obama prosecute first, the Bush Administration or Al-Qaeda?

Here is where this is going and the left will not be satisfied until they complete their own mission accomplished.


Let me state this loud and clear, Barack Hussein Obama is not American enough to be President. He has shallow roots in this country. He was given a pass by the American people because he is black. He had no qualifications in leadership. He is not fit to serve as Commander in Chief. The first affirmative action president has the gall to attack real Americans that rose to the occasion to do what had to be done to protect our country. His actions and hints of prosecution against his betters deserve rebuke, contempt and will tear this country apart.

Know the Difference Between Torture and Interrogation

trish said...

Many, besides just the left, argue that torture does not work. A certain poster here with past connections to interrogations and present connections with the CIA makes that claim.
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I cite such people as examples of the creeping political correctness, and Psychologizing under the influence of the dominate culture and institutions.

10/19/2007 07:32:00 PM

Past connections to interrogations, yes. Present or past connections to CIA? No.

Waterboarding isn't torture, by the way. Unless the admin has decided it is, which I don't believe it has. The USG doesn't undertake torture in any of its agencies nor sanction such, so it's a moot debate, manufactured for your entertainment. Because it's a matter of US Code, you can only fiddle with the definition, as there's a certain amount of unavoidable, cultural subjectivity involved, but you can't get very far with that tack. Good Guy is our schtick, broadly speaking, and we're schtickin' to it. (Jihadists will disagree, but jihadists don't like being leisurely strip searched by female soldiers, either.)

Trish proposes that every American attend a short, unclassified course on interrogation - taught by those who do it for a living - so that every American would have a better understanding of what it is, and what it is not; what it aims to accomplish and what it aims to avoid; its many, and universal, methods and its inherent limitations. Trish's course would end with videotape of actual (obvious, rather) torture, so that everyone has a vivid image in future discussion of the matter. Better yet, it would end with videotape of a high level detainee abjectly weeping, then agreeing to cooperation, after relatively brief interrogation employing approaches decidedly this side of torture. But as a practical matter that'd never be declassified.

In any event, she'd make special provision for Doug, who would also attend a full SEAR course, thereby making him acquainted with both ends of the business and leaving him an all round better human being.

Mon Oct 22, 08:12:00 AM EDT

Trish is a commenter and ex-director of The Elephant Bar, amongst possible other things unnamed.

ppab said...Padilla and Transitional Justice

From an earlier thread came a comment which I immediately deleted because I thought the topic deserved a post and thread of its own:

ppab said...
Thu Feb 22, 05:38:00 PM EST

Expert: Padilla Unable to Stand Trial

Read the article and you'll see this at the end:

During cross-examination, prosecutor John Shipley pointed to a test administered by Hegarty in which Padilla scored "zero" on the portions indicating post-traumatic stress disorder. Those segments involved questions about flashbacks, nightmares, depression and other symptoms.

"Nothing in this test supports your diagnosis at all, isn't that correct?" Shipley asked.

"No," Hegarty replied, noting that the test answers were only one component of her decision.

That Hegarty is Angela Hegarty, of Human rights fame and NGO intrigue, presumably:

She's into stuff like, you know, Transitional Justice.

Its an interesting read as this stuff seems one part activism one part litigation.

Also, consider the strategies:

#Trials and Prosecution: The first and usually the most preferred choice. It is a criminal justice or judicial approach, either undertaken domestically, internationally or what has become known in recent years as the hybrid. From its historical trace to the ‘Nuremberg Trials’ recent examples have included the Sierra Leone’s Special Court, the International Tribunal for Rwanda and Yugoslavia and in the last few years the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC), assuming a universal jurisdiction;

#Truth Commission: A non-judicial or quasi judicial approach, it has become very common and popular in recent transitional societies. It investigates the past to determine the full extent and nature of past abuses through truth-telling process; forge reconciliation; develop reparations packages; memorialize and remember victims; and make proposals for the reform of abusive state institutions in order to prevent future violations. They include both national (Argentina in 1983, Chile 1990, South Africa in 1995, Ghana in 2002) and international (El Salvador in 1992, Guatamala in 1997, East Timor in 2001, Sierra Leone in 2002.);

# Lustration and/or Vetting: This include purging the public services and especially the security sector, a process of excluding corrupt, abusive and incompetent officials from working in the public sector. This strategy has been common in Eastern Europe, such as former Czechoslovakia. Vetting is a process of examination and evaluation to eliminate corrupt and abusive officials through due process. This process furthers accountability, democratization and credibility of institutions; and

# Institutional Reform: Reform of abusive public institutions such as the police, military and security intelligence establishments, the Judiciary, prisons, amendments of obnoxious and abusive laws as well as constitutions.

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I don't know anything about Ms. Hegarty beyond what ppab has noted for us and of course, one can hardly fault the tranzie Lawyers for trying anything to keep their client out of court. That is after all, what they are paid to do. It is disheartening though, to hear them spread their propaganda and outright lies throughout the world compliments of our "friends" at the BBC World Service and the Guardian UK. For the left, it is essential that Jose Padilla not stand trial. As long as he can be painted as a broken hollow shell, Padilla is a powerful tool for the left as this article from the Guardian UK illustrates. In Padilla, the propagandists have a real life victim of the "systematic and routine torture" employed by the evil Bush Administration. A public trial where Padilla is shown as not so broken, hollow and docile is not in their best interest.