Follow BeltwayBlips on Twitter
Double-think is doubleplusgood
Unqualified Offerings —
By Thoreau Greenwald reports on the most fascinating of prosecutions: The Bush administration is seeking a prison sentence of 147 years for the son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor, for his involvement with torture. This is the sort of case that sets precedents, precedents that might just be USEFUL…. Perhaps the sentence should be hanging?
Emmanuel Case Should Be the Rule, Not the Exception
Daily Kos —
... electric shocks, molten plastic, lit cigarettes, hot clothes irons, bayonets and ants. Prosecutors are seeking a 147-year prison term. The Emmanuel conviction was surely milestone, as Elise Keppler, senior counsel for the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch, told The New York Times two months ago. But it's amazing so many people are unable to extrapolate from Emmanuel's crimes to the crimes of others. As the inimitable Glenn Greenwald writes today: Acts which, when ordered by Liberians, are "criminal torture" ...
Not just another New Year's Eve
the talking dog —
... While the main arc of civilization (i.e. the powerful White men may do what they like with complete impugnity, but God help anyone else if they dare engage in similar conduct ), one must look back on 2008 and acknowledge what an amazing year it has been. Obviously, the fact that in 220 years of our Constitutional system, no man who was either (1) a graduate of Columbia College or (2) not born in the lower 48 or (3) not White had ever been elected President before, and no sitting senator since JFK. Barack Hussein Obama has shattered all of those barriers at the same time, ...
Blind Eye
N/A —
... . “Federal prosecutors in Miami are seeking 147 years in prison for the torture convictions against the son of ex-Liberian President Charles Taylor.” Irony is not dead. Is this a case of do what we say, not what we do. Or do what we do and be convicted here. ...
Bush And Pre-emptive Pardons-- Where Are The Progressives?
DownWithTyranny! —
... would be a rich source of leads for prosecutors. Or they could get a leg up on the process by hiring Glenn Greenwald for their team. While I was in Mali, Ken made the point ...
Lunch Links
The Agitator —
... roast last summer. But I caught a clip of Norm MacDonald’s contribution on a year-end list yesterday. The folks at Videogum are right. It’s genius. Goes right up there with Gilbert Gottfried’s version of “The Aristocrats” at the 2001 Hugh Heffner roast as one of the classics of the genre.
Honey laundering! I’d like to think the Seattle paper undertook the entire investigative series just so they could use the punny headline.
U.S. government to try political leaders who order torture! So long as they’re ...
Hullabaloo — ... We have a group in power currently that has no problem reconciling the dissonance between prosecuting foreigners for torture while allowing those inside the government who directed and authorized the same to go free. This is what has diminished America's standing in the world and strained relations with allies. If the Obama Administration continues operating under this double standard, insisting that other countries respect human rights and international agreements while declining to do the same, he will find it impossible to convince the world that anything ...
