rossdouthat.theatlantic.com - 12/17/2008
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I haven't written anything substantial, ever, about America's treatment of detainees in the War on Terror. There are good reasons for this, and bad ones. Or maybe there's only one reason, and it's probably a bad one - a desire to avoid taking on a fraught and desperately importantly subject ...
thinkprogress.org - 12/15/2008
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thinkprogress.org —
Yesterday, after an Iraqi journalist used “ [t]wo
of the worst insults in Islam ” against him,...
an unfazed President Bush sat down with ABC’s Martha Raddatz for an exit interview in Iraq. When Raddatz asked Bush about his legacy, ...
(more)
Bush On Al Qaeda Not Existing In Iraq Before Invasion: ...
rawstory.com - 12/15/2008
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rawstory.com —
Outgoing VP says Guantanamo prison should stay open
until end of terror war, but has no idea...
when that might be. Monday, outgoing Vice President Dick Cheney made a startling statement on a nation-wide, televised broadcast. When asked by ABC News ...
(more)
Cheney admits authorizing detainee's torture
Comments
Blog Reactions
"What I Wanted Them To Do"
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan —
Ross has a long, intellecually honest post on torture. Respect: So as far as the bigger picture goes, then, it seems indisputable that in the name of national security, and with the backing of seemingly dubious interpretations of the laws, this Administration pursued policies that delivered many detainees to physical and mental abuse, and not a few to death. These were wartime measures, yes, but war is not a moral blank check: If you believe that Abu Ghraib constituted a failure of jus in bello, then you have to condemn the decisions that led to Abu Ghraib, ...
12/17: Caroline And The Netroots
Blogometer —
... 's argument: THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Bush Administration And Torture The Atlantic 's Ross Douthat : "Some of the most passionate torture opponents have ...
Ross On Torture II
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan —
... In his powerful post, my colleague Ross Douthat explores what torture means, and whether we can sustain a clear boundary between torture and "torture-lite." Here's how I tackle that thorny question, after exploring it for many years. Focusing on techniques can be misleading. What it tends to do is make longer, less immediate forms of torture more acceptable than, say, pulling out the finger-nails or electrocuting testicles. But as I've been forced to discover over these past few gut-wrenching years, the torture created by freezing someone to near death or heating them ...
Torture and Mitigation
Lawyers, Guns and Money —
A while ago, Ross Douthat wrote a meandering, self-indulgent post about his feelings on torture, suggesting that while he felt torture was bad, he could also understand why the Bush administration had ordered it, mainly because Douthat himself was kind of scared after 9/11. Glenn Greenwald ...
Related Content
In defense of torture
ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com 12/18/2008 — Ross gives us a fairly thoughtful untangling of his complicated feelings about torture. If I may, I'd quibble with one point. Ross puts Bush's torture advocacy in historical perspective, correctly point out that while torture may be a betrayal of ...
Reynolds Keeps Flailing
andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com 12/16/2008 — I should count it as a victory of sorts that Instapundit was finally forced to read the report that proves that the techniques used at Abu Ghraib - those in the photos that Reynolds once called "torture" deserving "jail or ...
8 years on the dark side
boston.com 12/20/2008 — Vice President Dick Cheney says he directly approved waterboarding to torture terror suspects. A bipartisan Senate committee report concludes that the 2003 Abu Ghraib detainee abuse was not just the result of a few rogue soldiers. Those items help ...
"There Is A Better Way"
washingtonmonthly.com 12/19/2008 — "There Is A Better Way" Scott Horton has a really good interview with Matthew Alexander, the military interrogator whose interrogations helped the US locate and kill Zarqawi. Alexander's answers should put paid to the Ticking Time Bomb argument once ...
First It Was “So?”, Now It’s “So What?”
themoderatevoice.com 12/16/2008 — Most Americans remember with incredulity and disgust Dick Cheney’s arrogant and condescending answer when he was asked what he thought about polls that indicated two-thirds of Americans believed the war in Iraq was not worth fighting, that the ...
Cheney Slaps Biden Upside The Head.....
joshuapundit.blogspot.com 12/26/2008 — I absolutely loved this, on several levels. With around a month to go until he retires, Vice President Dick Cheney decided it was time for a little payback to VP elect Joe Biden . In a FOX news interview, VP Cheney was asked about Biden's oft quoted ...
More on Torture
swampland.blogs.time.com 1/13/2009 — A number of readers have taken me to task for not calling for the prosecution of George Bush et al for war crimes. Glenn Greenwald has now piled on . Let me say this: I would have no moral, legal or spiritual problem with the Obama Administration ...
Please Go Away
swampland.blogs.time.com 2/4/2009 — Let's leave aside the fact that if Dick Cheney and his alleged boss had been more vigilant--if they had listened to the Clinton appointees like Sandy Berger who warned about Al Qaeda, if they had paid attention to their own intelligence reports ...
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