Deep Throat

[gesser]

W. Mark Felt...interesting.

http://news.yahoo.com/fc/us/richard_nixon


I remember my gov't teacher talking about him the other year.

Want to hear what Bernstein and Woodward have to say first.

[MoMo]

Woodward and Bernstein (and Ben Bradlee, their editor at the Washington Post at the time) have all said they won't talk until DT is dead.

That, ironically, leaves the Post in a difficult position in reporting the Felt story -- knowing that the answer to the question is in-house (Woodward still works there, and Bradlee, in his 80s, still drops into the office between tennis matches), but that they can't get it.

As to Felt, well, it seems plausible that he could be it, though he's 91 and recently had a stroke. Guess we'll have to wait till "Woodstein" finally spills the goods.

[gesser]

Woodward and Bernstein (and Ben Bradlee, their editor at the Washington Post at the time) have all said they won't talk until DT is dead.

That, ironically, leaves the Post in a difficult position in reporting the Felt story -- knowing that the answer to the question is in-house (Woodward still works there, and Bradlee, in his 80s, still drops into the office between tennis matches), but that they can't get it.

As to Felt, well, it seems plausible that he could be it, though he's 91 and recently had a stroke. Guess we'll have to wait till "Woodstein" finally spills the goods.


Yeah, but I figured that if DT is really Felt, they would just confirm it. The 'wait til dead' thing was only if he didn't reveal himself when he was alive.

[Jwaksman]

I'm sure you all have seen it already, but Woodward & Bernstein have confirmed it. I guess they figured they might as well, since it was already out in the open, and it was better to confirm it then to leave it hanging for the next few years.

[78Champ]

I'm sure you all have seen it already, but Woodward & Bernstein have confirmed it. I guess they figured they might as well, since it was already out in the open, and it was better to confirm it then to leave it hanging for the next few years.

CNN (http://www.cnn.com)

JW

[Kalaby]

Now if we could only figure out who Carly Simon was singing about in "You're So Vain" we will have solved 2 of the 3 great mysteries of the 1970s. The last one - how in the hell did "sane" people spend their hard earned money on a Pet Rock may never be figured out.

[exjersey1]

Now if we could only figure out who Carly Simon was singing about in "You're So Vain" we will have solved 2 of the 3 great mysteries of the 1970s. The last one - how in the hell did "sane" people spend their hard earned money on a Pet Rock may never be figured out.


Always wondered if the same people who owned Pet Rocks were the ones who bought all the Mood Rings.

[TI83]

why do you think he kept it secret so long?

[NJ5k]

He had told Woodward and Bernstein that he didn't want his name revealed. Apparently he was not so proud of his role and wished it not be leaked. In his ailing physical and mental health, he decided to reveal it himself.

[TI83]

that's what i suspected...i wouldn't be to thrilled with myself for getting the man i worked for in some major trouble

[decastella]

actually, these two, along with bradlee, should be commended for keeping their word in not revealing this source... by doing so, they maintained their credibility -- if they would have revealed deep throat, they would have had none...

what it brings up, though is the ethical question that we talk about in the journalism classes that i teach -- was deep throat a hero or not? was he right in leaking the info? is it okay to do so in a situation when the public needs to know?

these are the tough questions that require a lot of thinking...

[mzungu]

many religions teach that matters of conscience trump public laws, and here it's pretty much a slam dunk because nixon's actions violated public laws AND conscience for most people. the only reason to maintain silence here was authority. but even the military, since nuremberg, has dictated that illegal or unconscionable orders must not be followed. see various vietnam-era and abu ghraib-era cases. moreover, a court is currently attempting to imprison two reporters for withholding information concerning the identity of the criminal who outed valerie plame (this administration official broke federal law banning the outing of fbi agents). the principle there is obviously that it is illegal to conceal information concerning a crime.

[jersey_guy]

Long time ago the media had enough credibility to ovethrow a president. Now we have Dan Rather and Michael Isikoff.

"This is a great day for France" - Richard Nixon while attending Charles De Gaulle's funeral

[Jwaksman]

jg, the media has been leftist for years. And if you think that newspapers are bad now, you should read the stuff that Adams, Burr, Jefferson, and Hamilton were writing in newspapers more than 200 years ago.


But the thing is, if a story is big enough, it will always be reported. Bias is a lot more subtle than one tv show. Both channels have hour long shows with liberals, and both have hour-long shows with conservatives. That's not bias. Everyone knows that O'Reilly is conservative, so letting him talk for an hour is not bias. People who watch it know what they're getting. Bias is only in the way news shows are presented, which are supposed to be unbaised. Bias is the way a story is presented, maybe giving the bad news about Bush first. Or perhaps leaving out tiny stories. And it's not a huge Jewish conspiracy, or something like that. It's just that people are writing these stories, and they have to use discretion.


The head of CNN is not forcing a story to be leftist anymore than the head of Foxnews is forcing a story to be on the right. What happens is that the rightists in charge of Fox hire rightists underneath them, and the majority of workers there are rightist. And the opposite goes on at CNN, of course. Then, those are the people who are writing the stories, and it's hard to hide your own bias.

It's much more innocent than Fidel Castro and Pat Buchanan over here would like you to think.

[MoMo]

actually, these two, along with bradlee, should be commended for keeping their word in not revealing this source... by doing so, they maintained their credibility -- if they would have revealed deep throat, they would have had none...

what it brings up, though is the ethical question that we talk about in the journalism classes that i teach -- was deep throat a hero or not? was he right in leaking the info? is it okay to do so in a situation when the public needs to know?

these are the tough questions that require a lot of thinking...

Good points, decastella. In my way of thinking, it was absolutely the honorable, American thing to do. Felt knew that a corrupt administration was trying to wrongfully use the FBI and the CIA as tools to cover up its illegal actions. His loyalty was not to the president, it was to the people and the country. And I think he behaved honorably.

I wish this had broken a few hours earlier in the day. I'd love to know how Bush would have reacted if someone had asked him during his news conference about the propriety, or not, of such leakage -- which he has always angrily denounced.

[KenA55]

Now if we could only figure out who Carly Simon was singing about in "You're So Vain" we will have solved 2 of the 3 great mysteries of the 1970s.

Whatever guy happened to be listening, I suppose. But I always heard it was directed at Warren Beatty.

[mzungu]

Jwaksman
Member Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: New York
Posts: 1




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

jg, the media has been leftist for years. And if you think that newspapers are bad now, you should read the stuff that Adams, Burr, Jefferson, and Hamilton were writing in newspapers more than 200 years ago."


in other words, adams, burr, jefferson, and hamilton don't meet your standards?

[exjersey1]

Jwaksman
Member Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: New York
Posts: 1




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

jg, the media has been leftist for years. And if you think that newspapers are bad now, you should read the stuff that Adams, Burr, Jefferson, and Hamilton were writing in newspapers more than 200 years ago."


in other words, adams, burr, jefferson, and hamilton don't meet your standards?



Maybe he just doesn't understand that without the "leftist" media, we'd only hear what our government wants us to hear.

[Jwaksman]

Jwaksman
Member Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: New York
Posts: 1




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

jg, the media has been leftist for years. And if you think that newspapers are bad now, you should read the stuff that Adams, Burr, Jefferson, and Hamilton were writing in newspapers more than 200 years ago."


in other words, adams, burr, jefferson, and hamilton don't meet your standards?




No, they don't. If you read what they wrote, most of it was just horrible lies and bile, trying to get a political advantage. All of those politicians hated each other (seriously, each of them hated the other three), and they would write horrible one-sided views of everything.


That's why, in order to have a good understanding of the era, it's important to read ALL of them, as well as all commentary, in order to get a WELL-ROUNDED viewpoint.


Otherwise, if you just read Hamilton you'd believe that Adams was mentally handicapped, that Burr would sacrifice his first child to be President, and that Jefferson was trying to make the US a province of France. Or if you just read Jefferson you'd believe that Adams was trying to fix elections and that Hamilton wanted to install himself as king.


That's why it's important to read both sides.


And, exjersey, the reason that there's so much money to be made in conservative television is because there was such a gaping hole in the market. Liberals already had CBS, NBC, ABC & CNN to watch. What did conservatives have?

So, a good example was during the conventions. Because mostly Republicans watched the RNC and mostly Democrats watched the DNC. During the DNC, very few people watched Fox News, and most viewers were spread out among CNN, MSNBC, etc. Meanwhile, during the RNC, Fox News dominated television, getting higher ratings than all of the other channels combined. That's cause all rightists have is Fox News and Fox. The leftist market is already pretty saturated.

[mzungu]

the federalist papers were also newspaper articles.

[mzungu]

much of this news is courtesy of a supreme court decision allowing for prisoners to exercise judicial rights, but also much of it comes from deep throat style witnesses of conscience from within the state and defense departments. http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/amnesty25.html
obviously, some of the prisoner testimony is not to be trusted, but we have proof of administration policies justifying torture, as well as pictures of torture in places ranging from afghanistan to iraq to cuba, committed by u.s. government and military officials. so, we join sudan, haiti, congo, and other torturing nations. and remember that most of the people tortured have no connection to terrorism, and torture has been proved AGAIN AND AGAIN for hundreds of years to be utterly unreliable in terms of coerced confessions and testimony. interesting that, according to harper's, just ONE PERSON served as the source for over 100 intelligence estimates concerning Iraq WMD, all of which turned out to be non-existence, and this was trusted by the bush administration because it wanted it to be true, whereas bush and rumsfeld reject apparently all of the extensive evidence (which extends to thousands of pages in a publication called the torture papers, which is available in many american bookstores), including recent trials, that torture was justified by them and made an instrument of u.s. policy all around the world. is this how we fight for freedom? one publicized instance of u.s. sponsored torture does more to ruin any such struggle than just about anything else we do, in terms of public image and undermining u.s. credibility in criticizing other governments.

[Jwaksman]

Are you sure you're on the right thread with this one? For one, I don't support the torture of inmates. Even though torture does work - wouldn't you talk if someone was beating you up every day? I still wouldn't support it, because I believe it is a breach of our natural civil liberties.

[MoMo]

yes, most of us would talk -- and we'd say whatever we thought people wanted us to say.

several of the recent fbi summaries of their interviews with gitmo detainees quote the prisoners as saying they made stuff up (they didn't have anything of real interest to spill) just to get their interrogators to leave them alone.

[Jwaksman]

That would be why you do it to several people, and make the stories corroborate. Only a fool moves on the word of one prisoner.


If it didn't work they wouldn't do it. They're not just doing it cause they like to torture people.


But just because something works doesn't mean that you should do it. The ends don't justify the means.

[mzungu]

"if it didn't work, they wouldn't do it."

this is a huge fallacy. people take bogus hair tonics that don't work. people spend billions on diet pills that don't work. the u.s. spent $300 billion and 1600 lives on a false premise of wmd in iraq. torture makes most people confess whatever the torturers want, but that does not mean it produces reliable intelligence. its unreliability is what really explains its disappearance from most industrializing countries around the time of the French Revolution. as I reported, the 1989 CIA handbook criticizes torture as unreliable. So, yes, torture works to get people to talk, but what they say can't be relied on at all. And the U.S. has practiced torture on a widespread scale. Part of this is because the policy was justified by the Bush administration and Gonzales. Part of it is because our soldiers and intelligence officers have wanted to avenge 9/11. The reason this is relevant is that it is a case of the U.S. government doing something execrable and illegal (by both U.S. and international law, as proven here before) where administration officials have the moral and legal obligation to make what they're doing public, just as "deep throat" did. Now, deep throat was himself convicted for violating various civil liberties through the FBI, but that doesn't diminish the huge service he did for this country in reporting on Nixon's subversion of the basic liberties of this country.

incidentally, some of the torture is clearly because they liked doing it. you all have seen photos of some of the torture, involving sexual humiliation, pointing at their genitals, but did you know that other photos that the bush administration does not want to release (the ACLU just won a case for the release of these photos, but the bush administration'll continue in the courts probably to the Supreme Court) show U.S. soldiers sodomizing young male prisoners?

[mzungu]

evidence:
"A German TV magazine called 'Report Mainz' recently aired accusations from the International Red Cross, to the effect that over 100 children are imprisoned in U.S.- controlled detention centers, including Abu Ghraib. "Between January and May of this year, we've registered 107 children, during 19 visits in 6 different detention locations," said Red Cross representative Florian Westphal in the report.

The report also outlined eyewitness testimony of the abuse of these children. Staff Sergeant Samuel Provance, who was stationed at Abu Ghraib, said that interrogating officers had gotten their hands on a 15 or 16 year old girl. Military police only stopped the interrogation when the girl was half undressed. A separate incident described a 16 year old being soaked with water, driven through the cold, smeared with mud, and then presented before his weeping father, who was also a prisoner.

Seymour Hersh, the New Yorker reporter who first broke the story of torture at Abu Ghraib, recently spoke at an ACLU convention. He has seen the pictures and the videotapes the American media has not yet shown. "The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling, and the worst part is the soundtrack, of the boys shrieking," said Hersh. "And this is your government at war."

Hersh described the prison scene as, "a series of massive crimes, criminal activity by the president and the vice president, by this administration anyway," and that there has been, "a massive amount of criminal wrongdoing that was covered up at the highest command out there, and higher."

Reports of abuses at Abu Ghraib and other American prisons have been public knowledge since the release of the Taguba Report. Recently, however, some 106 annexes to the report, previously classified, have also been released. U.S. News and World Report detailed the sum of what is contained in these annexes in an article titled 'Hell on Earth.'

In it, U.S. News says, "The abuses took place, the files show, in a chaotic and dangerous environment made even more so by the constant pressure from Washington to squeeze intelligence from detainees. Riots, prisoner escapes, shootings, corrupt Iraqi guards, unsanitary conditions, rampant sexual misbehavior, bug-infested food, prisoner beatings and humiliations, and almost-daily mortar shellings from Iraqi insurgents--according to the annex to General Taguba's report, that pretty much sums up life at Abu Ghraib." According to coalition intelligence officers cited in a Red Cross report from last May, between 70% to 90% of Iraqi detainees held in these prisons were arrested "by mistake." That means they were innocent."

[jersey_guy]

did you know that other photos that the bush administration does not want to release (the ACLU just won a case for the release of these photos, but the bush administration'll continue in the courts probably to the Supreme Court) show U.S. soldiers sodomizing young male prisoners?

The Geneva Convention prohibits releasing photos of prisoners. The fact that ACLU is suing to overturn it shows quite clearly that it's a purely political organization and its tax-exempt status should be rescinded ASAP, along with Amnesty for International Terrorists.

[mzungu]

you are schizophrenic, clinically. In any case, the ACLU has sued in support of Jerry Falwell, in support of tobacco advertising. They will support Nazis, they will support terrorists, they will support innocent torture victims of the U.S., and yes, they will even support scumbag corporations and scumbag, hate-mongering individuals like Jerry Falwell IN THE CAUSE OF CIVIL LIBERTIES.

If you really support the Geneva Convention, then you must be horrified by the Bush Administration's widespread violations of its prohibitions on torture. The Geneva Convention says nothing against EXPOSING TORTURE WHERE IT HAS OCCURRED. What the Convention prohibits is the use of photos of torture victims for government propaganda. Did you object when your beloved New York Post, owned by Fox's Rupert Murdoch, published photos of Saddam Hussein in his underwear in his prison cell? That would be an example of using photos of prisoners for monetary gain and government propaganda at the same time.

[Jwaksman]

mzungu, come on now. You play these moral relativism games all the time that are just ridiculous. You're comparing the policies of intelligence organizations and governments for thousands of years to some idiot who buys a hair tonic?? You don't think the US government (and every other government in the world) has done scores of studies about torture?


I mean, no one wants to torture people. I know that you believe that soldiers and intelligence officers are sadistic animals who just want to kill as many people as they can, but they're actually just normal people like you and me. They wouldn't do bad things unless they worked.



But, again, this does not mean that I endorse such policies. The principle is still wrong.

[mzungu]

so, i take it that your position is that the u.s. government explicitly ordered those "normal" individuals to sodomize children, etc. my position is that it is a little of both--general policies justifying torture, specific commands to practice these general forms of torture, willingness to look the other way, and some sick and twisted individuals.

[Jwaksman]

Who is sodomizing children?



You make these absurd charges, like all the US troops do is sodomize children and flush korans down the toilet. The fact that you don't realize that 99.9% of US soldiers are really kind people who are doing whatever that they can to protect innocent people is really disheartening.



I'm saying that torture of prisoners is a useful way to get information from there. I am not saying that I support such actions, because I'd rather than not have the information than have to torture someone to get it. The ends don't justify the means in a just society.

[mzungu]

don't displace the charges. they come direct from the Red Cross, Amnesty International, the Taguba Report, and Seymour Hersh, who broke the Abu Ghraib story, as the story above indicates. if, say, 300,000 or more U.S. troops have been rotated through Iraq and Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay over the past three years, probably 299,000 or more had zero connection to torture. btw, MULTIPLE koran desecration stories have been multiply sourced for years, in addition to that one story, which may or may not be true. in fact, religious persecution has been a constant in the incidents of pouring what was supposed to be menstrual blood on prisoners in guantanamo, the lap dance, and a variety of other things, including forcing prisoners to sodomize other prisoners, which is also depicted in unpublished photos.

[mzungu]

quoted from the Taguba Report, from the U.S. Army:
"8. (U) In addition, several detainees also described the following acts of abuse, which under the circumstances, I find credible based on the clarity of their statements and supporting evidence provided by other witnesses (ANNEX 26):

a. (U) Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees;

b. (U) Threatening detainees with a charged 9mm pistol;

c. (U) Pouring cold water on naked detainees;

d. (U) Beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair;

e. (U) Threatening male detainees with rape;

f. (U) Allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell;

g. (U) Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick.

h. (U) Using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee."

[Jwaksman]

I have a question, how come if there is a day when 299,999 US soldiers do kind things for Iraqis, and 1 stupid US soldier taunts a prisoner, you choose to post about that 1? Why have you never once made a post about those other 299,999? Are you really that afraid of saying something nice about the military?

[mzungu]

you don't seem to understand the gravity of the United States becoming a torturing nation. this is not a case of one.
more from the Taguba Report. blame the military for hating america.
"5. (S) That between October and December 2003, at the Abu Ghraib Confinement Facility (BCCF), numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees. This systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military police guard force (372nd Military Police Company, 320thMilitary Police Battalion, 800th MP Brigade), in Tier (section) 1-A of the Abu Ghraib Prison (BCCF). The allegations of abuse were substantiated by detailed witness statements (ANNEX 26) and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence. Due to the extremely sensitive nature of these photographs and videos, the ongoing CID investigation, and the potential for the criminal prosecution of several suspects, the photographic evidence is not included in the body of my investigation. The pictures and videos are available from the Criminal Investigative Command and the CTJF-7 prosecution team. In addition to the aforementioned crimes, there were also abuses committed by members of the 325th MI Battalion, 205th MI Brigade, and Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center (JIDC). Specifically, on 24 November 2003, SPC Luciana Spencer, 205th MI Brigade, sought to degrade a detainee by having him strip and returned to cell naked. (ANNEXES 26 and 53)

6. (S) I find that the intentional abuse of detainees by military police personnel included the following acts:

a. (S) Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet;

b. (S) Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees;

c. (S) Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing;

d. (S) Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time;

e. (S) Forcing naked male detainees to wear women’s underwear;

f. (S) Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped;

g. (S) Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them;

h. (S) Positioning a naked detainee on a MRE Box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture;

i. (S) Writing “I am a Rapest” (sic) on the leg of a detainee alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year old fellow detainee, and then photographing him naked;

j. (S) Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee’s neck and having a female Soldier pose for a picture;

k. (S) A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee;

l. (S) Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee;

m. (S) Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees."

[mzungu]

add to this at least 38 cases in iraq of prisoners dying UNDER INTERROGATION.

[jersey_guy]

Did you object when your beloved New York Post, owned by Fox's Rupert Murdoch, published photos of Saddam Hussein in his underwear in his prison cell? That would be an example of using photos of prisoners for monetary gain and government propaganda at the same time.

Show me a proof that this picture was released by the US government. Otherwise you're just spamming.

[jersey_guy]

in fact, religious persecution has been a constant in the incidents of pouring what was supposed to be menstrual blood on prisoners in guantanamo, the lap dance, and a variety of other things.

I have to pay big $$$ for this sort of religious persecution while taxpyer-funded guests of the Cuban gulag get it for free. I think I'm gonna sue.

[Jwaksman]

mzungu, that photo was published by The Sun, in Britain. Every other newspaper that put that picture in used it the next day, accompanied by "This was published yesterday in The Sun."

[Jwaksman]

Hey, mzungu, do you really think that US prisoners of war are treated 1/100000000th as well as the US treats its prisoners of war? You think US troops are going to get Bibles or Torahs?


Oh, wait, I forgot, the US military has committed atrocities worse than the Holocaust. Actually, according to Nelson Mandela, even the Holocaust was the fault of the US....

[mzungu]

my country right or wrong. that attitude destroys any possibility of setting standards for your country in order to make it possible for the world to admire it. when the united states, on a widespread level, both supports and uses torture, that is not acceptable. and that means, of course, that any other nations that use torture are just as bad or worse, such as our allies to whom the u.s. has been sending prisoners through "extraordinary rendition." too bad many of these tortured prisoners were innocent.

[mzungu]

mzungu, that photo was published by The Sun, in Britain. Every other newspaper that put that picture in used it the next day, accompanied by "This was published yesterday in The Sun."

yes, and the new york post published it ON THEIR COVER FOR SALES AND PROPAGANDA PURPOSES, and Who owns the Sun? That's right, it's rupert murdoch, the owner of Fox and the New York Post.

[Jwaksman]

my country right or wrong. that attitude destroys any possibility of setting standards for your country in order to make it possible for the world to admire it. when the united states, on a widespread level, both supports and uses torture, that is not acceptable. and that means, of course, that any other nations that use torture are just as bad or worse, such as our allies to whom the u.s. has been sending prisoners through "extraordinary rendition." too bad many of these tortured prisoners were innocent.




What are you talking about????



Now, anyone who has been here for more than a year remember how Jersey_Guy pretended to be a crazy leftist. He said absurdly stupid things. Then, it turned out that he was just a crazy rightist who was trying to make leftists look bad.

Seeing as how mzungu has been saying things even more absurd than what Jersey_Guy used to say, can we all conclude that mzungu is just a rightwing troll? Because I don't know a single Democrat who wouldn't read some of mzungu's post and say, "Shut up, man, you're making us look like idiots". So, can we assume that mzungu is going to start posting about closing all the borders and banning abortions in 6 months?

[mzungu]

this is what I was referring to:
"Jwaksman
Member Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: New York
Posts: 1

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hey, mzungu, do you really think that US prisoners of war are treated 1/100000000th as well as the US treats its prisoners of war? You think US troops are going to get Bibles or Torahs?


Oh, wait, I forgot, the US military has committed atrocities worse than the Holocaust. Actually, according to Nelson Mandela, even the Holocaust was the fault of the US...."


all you can do in response to the enormous amount of evidence that the U.S. has tortured prisoners or sent them to be tortured all over the world is to deny it or to try to shift the topic to the behavior of u.s. soldiers IN GENERAL. you're part of the problem. and, no, not a single thing that I have said among the major points is based on questionable evidence. instead of refuting any of these points of fact, you resort to the old ad hominem attack, calling me crazy and tarring me by association with 2004 j_g. even the koran story was replicated in gitmo, as recently reported, so that newsweek was wrong stuff was b.s., because koran desecration and use of sacrilegious practices to embarrass muslim prisoners was very widespread.

[mzungu]

when you criticize clinton or democrats, do I tar you as un-American? that practice is transparent: paint your opponents as unpatriotic in order to discredit them, when you cannot discredit their points of fact or arguments. that tactic is despicable. go back and crawl into your multimillion dollar hole.

[Jwaksman]

mzungu, voting for Democrats isn't un-American. In fact, it's very pro-American. But you're not a Democrat. The Democratic Party is mostly made up of people who would consider what happened at Guantanamo a couple of isolated incidents that blemish a generally outstanding army, instead of someone who just loves to bash on the US all the time. I'm a lot closer to a Democrat than you are.


I have never, ever, EVER seen you say, "Boy, the US ______ was great this past month/year/century". You hate everything about our country.


One day you will say something nice about the United States and I'll probably pee my pants because I won't be able to believe it.



I mean, how delusional can you be to say that I'm a "US is always right" person? I attack things in the US more than just about anyone I know. But sometimes you say things that are so absurd (kind of like when the old JG used to say that what Christopher Columbus did was on par with the Holocaust) I just have to call you out on it.

[Zat0pek]

Not to change the subject, but with all the hullabaloo over Felt coming out as Deep Throat...

...where's the love for that other presidential whistleblower. . .Linda Tripp? :D

[Biscuit_AQ]

Jwaks, you're sort of dodging the issue of addressing the report he quoted.

[jersey_guy]

It's a vast right-wing cosnpiracy. Me, mzungu, and Howard "Republicans have never made an honest living in their lives" Dean will drive the Democratic Party into the wall.

[Jwaksman]

Jwaks, you're sort of dodging the issue of addressing the report he quoted.



I've said several times that while some of the actions at Guantanamo were wrong, and the specific soldiers punished, the Amnesty report has made some mistakes. First of all, comparing Guantanamo to "gulags" is offensive to anyone who actually was in a real gulag. Secondly, they're making a bigger deal out of what happened then really is true. In reality, the arabs don't really care about the things that happened there. Half of the cases of "koran defacing" were done by the inmates themselves. And the big protest after the Newsweek article that resulted in 17 people killed actually had nothing to do with the report. It turned out that it was a pro-Al Queda/pro-resistance march, and that a few naive people who actually wanted to protest the Newsweek thing came out, not realizing what the march really was for.


By being so partisan (just about every leading executive at Amnesty International donated to Kerry in 2004), they have ruined any chance they had at getting anything done. When you start calling people slave drivers they're simply going to fight back, saying that they did nothing wrong. If some of these leftists could actually be reasonable, and make reasonable corrections, then we could actually fix some of the problems.