BS: Obama and torture

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 May 09 - 11:45 PM

I never said he was a "genius". You used that word. I said he was a clever and capable and successful politician.

He was phenomenally successful up until, as I said, he bit off more than he could chew. His fatal mistake was attacking Russia in 1941, and it was a decision that no one else in the German Wehrmact high command thought was a good idea at the time. They all felt that to get into a 2-front war was inadvisable, and they were right.

He had nothing but success after success, as a matter of fact astounding successes...from the building of the Nazi Party to the chancellorship of Germany to the reoccupation of the Rheinland to the re-armament of Germany to the revitalization of the economy to diplomatic coups that allowed him to gobble up Austria and Czechoslovakia, to his shockingly quick and decisive victories in western Europe over Poland, France, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Yugoslavia, and Greece....

Sheesh! You don't call that "success"???? Why do you think all those millions of loyal Germans had such confidence in him at the time?

The first notable reverse suffered by Hitler was the failure to win the air battle over Britain in 1940. It failed in its objective to break the back of the RAF. In military terms it was a draw...inconclusive.

Look, Number 6, no one is successful forever. People eventually die, even if nothing else brings an end to their "success", but you can't deny that Hitler was extraordinarily successful up until approximately the time of the Battle of Stalingrad which occured in the summer of 1942 through to the early months of 1943. That was the real turning point. That was when he began to lose the war.

Would you rate Julius Caesar as "successful"? I would. How about Lincoln? Gandhi? Successful! But...Caesar and Lincoln and Gandhi still died at the hands of assassins, didn't they? The fact that they eventually fell does not change the fact that they were for a long time very successful. This was true of Julius Caesar, it was true of Lincoln, it was true of Gandhi, it was true of Attila the Hun, and it was also true of Hitler. They were all successful...until their time ran out.

WE REMEMBER such people because they were successful! If they had been failures, people incapable of accomplishing anything, you'd never even have heard of them. The only reason you even know about Hitler at all is because he DID succeed in becoming the leader of a very strong and dangerous Germany between 1933 and 1945.

Success is always temporary, because we are mortal beings and we all face our own destruction eventually.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: number 6
Date: 02 May 09 - 11:58 PM

"Sheesh! You don't call that "success"???? Why do you think all those millions of loyal Germans had such confidence in him at the time?"

yeah ... George Bush had the whole country under his confidence after 9/11 and full approval by the people to go into Iraq.

Ceasar, Ghandi, Lincoln and even Atilla the Hun were successful even if their time ran out suddenly ... they certainly weren't total failures (far from it) at the time of their assinations. Hitler blew it from the start and at the time of his death by his own hand he was a pathetic, dismal loser.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: number 6
Date: 03 May 09 - 12:11 AM

If Hitler had died in the summer of 1939 all he would have been remembered for his building of that highway .... nothing more.

Instead, he attacks and takes over some undefended Europian countries successfully and blows it completely once he meets resistance from the allies. If he was clever, he would have taken the advice form his generals ... who were clever. Instead every decision he made was a disaster.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: CarolC
Date: 03 May 09 - 12:16 AM

I don't think we really know that Japan wouldn't have agreed to a conditional surrender had they been given that option prior to getting nuked. They were not given that option until after getting nuked.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: number 6
Date: 03 May 09 - 12:31 AM

They were aware of it before being nuked.

Potsdam declarion

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 May 09 - 12:51 AM

Bill, I don't know where you get the idea that those countries were undefended. The German attacks in the West in 1940 could very well have failed, because:

They were outnumbered in fighting men.

They were outnumbered in tanks, and they were facing some markedly superior French and British tanks in 1940, as a matter of fact. The French Char 1 and the Somue were considerably tougher than the German Mark III and Mark IV tanks of the time. The British Matilda tank was also virtually impenetrable to the German tanks and anti-tank guns (only the 88MM Flak gun could knock it out).

The only area the Germans were superior in was the Luftwaffe, which somewhat outnumbered its Allied opposition over France, but was way better organized. Their tanks and troops generally were also way better organized.

Hitler had the good fortune to have some very innovative thinkers like Heinz Guderian on the General staff, and a very well-trained and highly motivated young army.

"blows it completely once he meets resistance from the allies"

Say what??? They won a lot of battles on both fronts against extremely resolute Allied resistance....and against greatly superior numbers of men and better equipment. When they invaded Russia in '41 they were grossly outnumbered in tanks and aircraft both, and the Russian tanks were far superior to the German tanks, but they still won astounding victories. It was the vicious Russian weather and the sheer size of the country that finally bogged them down short of Moscow (and this is in no way to downgrade the magnificent courage of the Russian troops, but the German troops showed equally magnificent courage).

Anyway, you are quite wrong to suggest that they failed as soon as they met significant Allied resistance. Not even close. They failed when they were overwhelmed by a flood of Allied men and equipment, because they were asked to do the impossible. Anyone on Earth would have failed, given the numbers, given the overwhelming odds they took on from the time they invaded Russia.

But all that's a side issue. Hitler was an enormously successful politician. Period. There's no line of argument you can come up with that will prove he wasn't. He was wrong, absolutely wrong...but he was successful up until late 1942. And why? Because he apparently had the ability to inspire most Germans at the time. That's about all any politician needs to be successful at the game of politics.

I can see you get some kind of personal satisfaction from denying that Hitler could possibly have had ANY kind of intelligence or ability at all...but why would you need to do that?

If he is your chosen "enemy", your ultimate symbol of evil, and I assume he is...what triumph would there be, Bill, in defeating an enemy who had absolutely nothing going for him? Wouldn't it be like beating up a mentally retarded person who doesn't even know how to fight? And why give anyone a medal for it then? Why call anyone a hero? What would be the big deal about winning that war....if Hitler was, as you say, completely lacking in any ability of any kind?

I should think it would mean a lot more to the winners of WWII if they had the honesty to admit that, "Hey, those Germans were a tough outfit, they fought like hell, they believed in what they were fighting for, and winning that war aganst them was no cakewalk."

And that's the truth. My father was there, driving a British tank, he fought against them, and it was no cakewalk. (He hated Hitler at least as much as you do...maybe more.)

You should not underestimate your enemies, Bill, just because you don't like them. It's unwise to underestimate your enemies.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: number 6
Date: 03 May 09 - 02:12 AM

Hey L.H. as I mentioned to you before my father was an officer in the Calgary Tanks and fought in N. Africa, Italy, France, Holland and germany and had a high regard for the german troops and their courage, and professionalism. This respect was earned not only in the line of battle but even after the immediate end of the war when he was involved in the weeding out of the SS from the regular surrendered troops. ... and as I mentioned to you in the thread up above The Weirmarch commanders were clever ... if Hitler didn't take control over military tactical decisions things might have been different ... he took these matters into his own hands made huge mistakes. He squandered his own troops. He was not a brilliant military leader and he was not a brilliant politician. He was an egotistical bully who took control of a country at a tiem when it was exhasted and weak.

Hitler was highly successful up until 1942 ... I think not. He blew the invasion of Britain when he had the English on the run. He lost the battle of Britain.

As to conquering these poorly undefended European countries ... it is a known fact german had built up it's armanents before the invasions to such extend they were the most superior army in the world at that time. Hell, the german Panzer dvision was attacking Polish calvary on horses. The Luftwaft was way advanced. They were the first to use airborne troops. Holland, Belgium, Denmark were no match to the German Army. France, and Britain were not prepared for the likes of the German army at that time.

Yes I despise Hitler (and all his henchmen) .... and have no respect or admiration of a man who was responsible for the loss of life of millions of human beings ... including the lives of his own countrymen who were led to slaughter to feed his own ego and illusions of grandeur. A man who in the end blamed the citizens of his own country for the war's loss. I never said I disliked the Germans.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: CarolC
Date: 03 May 09 - 02:21 AM

The Potsdam Declaration called for unconditional surrender. Had Truman allowed them to surrender conditionally, he might not have needed to drop any nukes. Even that Wikipedia page suggests that they would have agreed to a conditional surrender even prior to the nukes being used.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: CarolC
Date: 03 May 09 - 02:23 AM

...and in the end, the Japanese got the very conditions they were demanding before the nukes were dropped, which sort of suggests to me that the use of the nuclear weapons was not for the purpose of ending the war.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: number 6
Date: 03 May 09 - 02:37 AM

I think the main fact in the use of those atomic bombs was to get a message across to the Soviets and if not the world that the U.S. now had the trump card of power.

IMHO in regards to beating the crap out of the Japanese ... if the U.S. had not used the bomb and invaded Japan, I'm sure there would have been a coup (by the Japanese People) within Japan that would have disposed of the Imperial Household and the warlords ... bringing an end to the whole damned war.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Teribus
Date: 03 May 09 - 08:06 AM

"No 1945 bombings were necessary. Just wait. The Japanese were already sending out feelers to negotiate an end to the war and the only real sticking point was their fear of what might happen to the emperor if they were to surrender (given that he was considered a divine figure by the Japanese)."

So that was why they rejected outright the call for them to surrender issued from Potsdam?? They were sending out feelers to end the war – odd way to do it don't you think.

"Japanese surrender was inevitable. All the Allies need have done was talk to them and discuss conditions instead of the usual lunacy of demanding "unconditional surrender". Who the hell needs unconditional surrender to end a war when the other side is desperately looking around for a way to end it? Nobody."

Who the hell needs unconditional surrender?? Nobody says Little Hawk conveniently forgetting the millions killed and the lives and countries destroyed vicariously by those that Little Hawk says the Allies should have done a deal with, those who freely elected to go to war for no other reason than for their own gain. Unconditional surrender had nothing whatsoever to do with "revenge" and "kicking the crap" out of your former enemies because as things turned out that is not what the Allies did – remember that the "Marshall Plan's" first priorities centered on the reconstruction of the defeated Axis powers. Oh and by the bye it was on MacArthur's insistence that the Emperor of Japan remain as Head of State albeit as a constitutional monarch as opposed to a divine being – an enormous difference for the Japanese people. Unconditional surrender was the requirement agreed to by the allied powers from the outset as it left their former enemies in no doubt whatsoever that they had lost the wars that they had started, returning German troops after 1945 did not resume civilian life in Germany muttering about having been "stabbed-in-the-back" as their forefathers did in 1918, there would be no leadership or political system or thought left of the country that took the world to war, it all had to be done away with. As far as the allies were concerned, particularly Russia, had there been a "conditional" surrender it would have tantamount to agreeing – "Ah well until the next time then chaps" – After 72 million deaths such a prospect was totally unacceptable.

"Wars were almost always negotiated to an end in prior centuries. When one side clearly could not win anymore, then they sent emissaries and discussed terms of surrender. This was a normal diplomatic measure taken to end most wars in Europe for many centuries."

Yes Little Hawk and that is why wars kept reoccurring.

Oh and by the bye the Germans who attempted to assassinate Hitler were only trying to save what they could of their own old way of life, the condition of humanity didn't enter into the equation. And yes you are quite right the Allies would not have listened to what "conditions" the Germans would put forward, and the Allies would have been perfectly correct in not doing so.

"There's no useful comparison. Hitler was in command of a major world power in 1939-45. Saddam was in command of a battered and helpless shell of a beaten country in 2003 that was incapable of militarily threatening any of its neighbours in any serious manner. To compare them is, in my opinion, illogical and unrealistic in the extreme, but self-serving if you want to justify an illegal attack on Iraq in 2003, of course."

Being a bit selective here aren't we Little Hawk?? As to relevant comparisons between Hitler and Saddam they are legion, but all too uncomfortable for the anti-Bush anti-war crowd to highlight. Do you want to go through some of them??

1.        The German National Socialist party was the brainchild of Adolf Hitler. The Ba'athist Party in both Iraq and in Syria was modeled on Hitler's German National Socialist Party.
2.        How about this one Little Hawk – "Hitler was in command of a battered and helpless shell of a beaten country in 1933 that was incapable of militarily threatening any of its neighbours in any serious manner." – And guess what Little Hawk if the major League of Nations powers had confronted Hitler anytime between 1933 and 1936 about Germany's non-compliance with the Treaty of Versailles (secret re-armament and re-occupation of the Rhineland) there would not have been a Second World War. Instead Hitler was appeased as many on this forum would have had the world do with Saddam. In appeasing Hitler the "anti-war" mob of the 1930's brought about the deaths of 72 million people.
3.        Both Hitler and Saddam Hussein were opportunists, both ready and willing to pounce on what they perceived to be weakness in others.
4.        Hitler believed in the racial superiority of his "Aryan race" Saddam believed in the pan-Arabist supremacy invented by Gamal Abdul Nasser.


"It's absolutely stupid to hold an opposing side to an unconditional surrender when a conditional surrender is possible. It's asinine to do so. It only means that there will be a lot more fighting and death and destruction before it ends than there needs to be."

Entirely due to the "unconditional surrender" of Germany it is highly unlikely that there will ever be another European War. Just in the same way it is highly unlikely that there will ever be another "Civil War" in the United States of America.

"Bill, I don't know where you get the idea that those countries were undefended. The German attacks in the West in 1940 could very well have failed,"

Really Little Hawk?? Denmark, Norway, Holland and Belgium?? Which ones do you think could have withstood the German attack and defeated Germany?? What would they have done it with Little Hawk??

Oh by the bye had Hitler actually listened to Heinz Guderian instead of sacking him in November 1941, the Germans may well have won their war in the "East". The Russians superiority in tanks and infantry would have been to no avail, had Guderain's advice been followed.

"Hitler was an enormously successful politician. Period."

Absolutely not little Hawk, like Saddam Hussein, Hitler was a political thug and it was fear and terror that kept him in power. It was not by political astuteness that he gained power it was by murder, blackmail and coercion.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: number 6
Date: 03 May 09 - 08:27 AM

Teribus / LH ... I should reword from undefended to inadequately defended.

Yes the Marshall plan did help Japan and Germany rebuild themselves ... now that was a truly brilliant move .... but first the allies had to kick the livin crap out of Japan and Germany to ensure they had total submission from the enemy. That cannot be denied ... they literally bombed Germany and Japan back into the dark ages.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Riginslinger
Date: 03 May 09 - 10:06 AM

Hitler must have been a genius. His paintings bring more money each time they change hands.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Peter T.
Date: 03 May 09 - 10:32 AM

Contrary to a current widespread delusion, Wikipedia is not authoritative.

No one had any idea what being "nuked" meant. Whether a demonstration somewhere other than a major city would have done the trick is also an open question. After Hiroshima, the Japanese still wandered around the issue of surrender.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Donuel
Date: 03 May 09 - 10:49 AM

For WW II officianados

The heinous torture and murder of German captives at Hanover is a dark chapter for the Allies that is nearly expurgated from discussion and many historical accounts of the final chapter of WW II.




As long as Obama has a torture truth commission he is legally off the hook for prosecution under the Geneva Convention.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Riginslinger
Date: 03 May 09 - 11:53 AM

Nobody is accusing Obama of torture, though every time he opens his mouth many of us think he should be.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Peter T.
Date: 03 May 09 - 12:41 PM

Nor is there much discussion of the execution of surrendered Canadians by the Germans, for which the first of the Nuremberg Trials were held (my father was a judge at those trials).

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: CarolC
Date: 03 May 09 - 12:53 PM

Well, at least they were discussed at the Nuremberg trials. We shouldn't sweep the atrocities committed by our own side under a carpet. Doing that assures that we will do such things again.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 May 09 - 04:45 PM

Contrary to a current widespread delusion, Wikipedia is not authoritative.

And that's being overly kind. Wikipedia is a blog - with all the failings of that sort of media.

Read a book.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: number 6
Date: 03 May 09 - 05:03 PM

The same information from the wiki link I posted can be found in ... "Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan" by Herbert P. Bix.

It's a book - with all the failings of that sort of media.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: CarolC
Date: 03 May 09 - 06:26 PM

Do people really think that information in book form is necessarily any more accurate than Wikipedia? If so, I have a really nice bridge I'd like to sell them.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Riginslinger
Date: 03 May 09 - 07:28 PM

Less imaginative people do. Some believe every line in "Mein Kampf."

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Greg F.
Date: 03 May 09 - 10:01 PM

Do people really think that information posted on a blog by any idiots that come along with little or no training, education or qualifications of any sort is to be believed?

Relativism run amok.

Hey, its on the Internet! It MUST be true.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Little Hawk
Date: 03 May 09 - 10:12 PM

They do, Rig? How many? One millionth of a per cent of the present world population or something along that line? I don't think it's a major problem.

Teribus, I didn't read your post down there, so I don't know what you said in it.

Ever since a couple of years ago when you used some private stuff about my life that I spoke to you about in a PM I sent you (when I was attempting to establish some kind of reasonably friendly dialogue between us)...and you used it repeatedly to make personal attacks on me on this forum on various threads...and you never even replied to my PM....

Well, ever since then I generally (depending on the subject of the thread) don't even read your posts. Period. And I won't.

I just see your name in the list, and I scroll right past it.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Riginslinger
Date: 03 May 09 - 11:26 PM

"They do, Rig? How many? One millionth of a per cent of the present world population or something along that line? I don't think it's a major problem."

                Probably more than that, and the percentage is growing--at least it seems that way to me. But you're right, a larger problem are people who believe everything they read in things like the Bible.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: CarolC
Date: 04 May 09 - 12:01 AM

Well, people have actually done studies to determine how Wikipedia stacks up against books to see which one (if any) had more accurate information, and Wikipedia compared favorably with books in that regard.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: CarolC
Date: 04 May 09 - 12:02 AM

This is not to say that Wikipedia is necessarily particularly accurate, it is more to say that books are not necessarily particularly accurate, either.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: CarolC
Date: 04 May 09 - 02:48 AM

Wow. Taking personal information shared in a private message, and using it to make personal attacks on people in the open forum. It don't get much lower than that, does it? Seems to me someone like that could never be trusted with anything at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 May 09 - 08:00 AM

...studies to determine how Wikipedia stacks up against books...

Carol-

I'd be interested in taking a look at those studies- who they were conducted by, what evaluation criteria they used, what books were udsed for comparison.

Can you supply references to them so I can look them up?

Thanks-

Greg

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Riginslinger
Date: 04 May 09 - 08:58 AM

If you look into something you know a great deal about, on Wikipedia, you can sometimes find bogus entries, but it's been my experience that those bogus entries don't last very long, because somebody has come in and corrected them.
             A lager problem that I've seen is, somebody will come in with some political bent or another, and enter something under a topic, someone else will correct it, and it's hard to know which is accurate.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Peter T.
Date: 04 May 09 - 09:46 AM

Returning to the thread topic (!), today's New York Times (Monday) has a whole series of exculpatory interviews by people trying to weasel out of responsibility for who ordered what when -- most of it (of course) on "deep background".   It reads like the kind of thing you might imagine the interrogators at Nuremberg hearing: Oh, I was opposed all along, of course I passed the memo along, but I never approved it.   And yes of course we stopped it as soon as we could. Shocked, shocked, that gambling was going on.

So painfully obvious.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Teribus
Date: 04 May 09 - 10:07 AM

It is of little interest, or importance, to me whether or not you read my posts or not, but adopting the stance taken, (i.e. sticking fingers in both ears and chanting laa-laa-laa to anything counter to what you believe) is hardly the basis for any discussion. It will not prevent me from commenting when you post complete and utter tripe, which you seem to do often.

I have only ever received four PM's from you two in May 2006 and two in November 2007. If the content of your PM's were indeed an attempt by you to "establish some kind of reasonably friendly dialogue between us" then you have an extremely odd way of going about it. The language used was offensive and insulting in the extreme and hence were not considered to warrant the courtesy of any sort of response from me - Would you like me quote some of your remarks?? - Oh I forgot you won't read this.

As to the charge of me using "private stuff" contained in one of your PM's. That is absolute rubbish, you stated nothing in that mail that you hadn't previously mentioned on threads on this forum previously - you are talking here about going to school in the US and being bullied because of your views on the British being at odds with what was being taught. You have mentioned this before openly in threads by way of explanation on your views of the US and the UK. You introduced it into the public domain - Not me. You make personal attacks on me then expect to receive return fire in kind. I most certainly will not be told what I can and cannot do by the likes of yourself, not now, not ever, live with it.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Riginslinger
Date: 04 May 09 - 10:17 AM

I can't believe anyone is still using the New York times as a source.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Wesley S
Date: 04 May 09 - 11:00 AM

I'd rather trust the New York Times than AM radio and the internet.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: CarolC
Date: 04 May 09 - 12:02 PM

Here are some articles about studies done with regard to Wikipedia's accuracy...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4530930.stm

http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2006/11/8296.ars


Are some people really suggesting that just because a book is a book, that automatically gives it credibility for accuracy?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: CarolC
Date: 04 May 09 - 12:11 PM

I should point out here, that I consider much of what I read in Wikipedia (on subjects that are in dispute) to be inaccurate. But I also regard much of what I read in books on many subjects to be inaccurate as well.

Books can be written by anyone, just like Wikipedia entries. They can have an axe to grind, just like Wikipedia entries. They can be published by unscrupulous people, just like Wikipedia entries. Books as a category are no more credible as sources of accurate information than Wikipedia. The fact of information being printed on paper does not give it any more credibility than information that appears on the internet.

The criteria for whether or not an information source is credible really has nothing to do with whether that information appears in print form or on the internet. The criteria is whether or not the information has been properly researched and presented without bias or hidden agenda. Both books as well as the internet have no shortage of examples of information not living up to those criteria.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Wolfgang
Date: 04 May 09 - 12:54 PM

Wikipedia entries are fairly good on science topics.
To generalize from that finding to Wikipedia entries about politics is a bit careless.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: CarolC
Date: 04 May 09 - 01:14 PM

I never said that Wikipedia is necessarily accurate. In fact, I said at least twice that I don't consider it necessarily accurate. What I have been saying is that books are not necessarily any more accurate than Wikipedia, simply for the fact that they are books. One cannot seriously say that in all cases, any book will be more accurate than any Wikipedia entry, as was suggested above by a poster. Each book and each Wikipedia entry has to be judged on its own merits.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: GUEST,number 6
Date: 04 May 09 - 01:46 PM

"Each book and each Wikipedia entry has to be judged on its own merits. "

true.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Peter T.
Date: 04 May 09 - 04:30 PM

I was probably overreacting. The fact is that all my students use Wikipedia as their authoritative source on all topics. I have no objection to anyone starting with Wikipedia (I use it all the time, and I think it is brilliant, and have contributed myself), but stopping there is the problem.

A real problem with Wikipedia is that there is no place for opinion, really (the argument areas are not all that friendly, I find).   They need to create some more safety valves, as opposed to the endless rewriting and watchdogging of so many areas. (They need a Mudcat BS zone).

I also agree that the science parts of Wikipedia are very, very good. At some point you can tell that some professor or her students went to work on the entries -- the physics and math ones are amazing. I am quite surprised at how poor some areas are: music, for example, by and large, is disappointing. Not pop music: endless stuff there, but classical music and jazz, etc.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Peter T.
Date: 04 May 09 - 04:40 PM

Christopher Hitchens (no mindless liberal he!) has a nice peace on the British torture regime in World War II:

http://www.slate.com/id/2217583/

The lionization (I use the term carefully) of Churchill by Obama is an amusing piece of rhetorical table-turning, but I'm not sure Churchill is such a great source of ethics. His behaviour here and there in his career was not exactly stellar.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Riginslinger
Date: 04 May 09 - 10:18 PM

Any politician who has the nerve to stick his neck out is going to be attacked by somebody. Obama looks to Churchill and Lincoln. If he lives up to that standard, he would be unusual indeed.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Peter T.
Date: 12 May 09 - 02:39 PM

Once again, the Obama administration is threatening the British about the release of torture information.   In a recent letter, they have essentially said that the plaintiff in a British court should not be given access to material about his torture -- and the administration is threatening the mutual security pact if they continue to demand it.

This is absolutely illegal under international law. As usual, the online magazine Salon has the story today:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/12/obama/

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: beardedbruce
Date: 12 May 09 - 03:09 PM

What if Cheney's Right?

By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Blogger Alert: I have written a column in defense of Dick Cheney. I know how upsetting this will be to some Cheney critics, and I count myself as one, who think -- in respectful paraphrase of what Mary McCarthy said about Lillian Hellman -- that everything he says is a lie, including the ands and the thes. Yet I have to wonder whether what he is saying now is the truth -- i.e., torture works.

In some sense, this is an arcane point since the United States insists it will not torture anymore -- not that, the Bush people quickly add, it ever did. Torture is a moral abomination, and President Obama is right to restate American opposition to it. But where I reserve a soupçon of doubt is over the question of whether "enhanced interrogation techniques" actually work. That they do not is a matter of absolute conviction among those on the political left, who seem to think that the CIA tortured suspected terrorists just for the hell of it.

Cheney, though, is adamant that the very measures that are now deemed illegal did work and that, furthermore, doing away with them has made the country less safe. Cheney said this most recently on Sunday, on CBS's "Face the Nation." "Those policies were responsible for saving lives," he told Bob Schieffer. In effect, Cheney poses a hard, hard question: Is it more immoral to torture than it is to fail to prevent the deaths of thousands?

Cheney is a one-man credibility gap. In the past, he has said, "We know they [the Iraqis] have biological and chemical weapons," when it turned out we knew nothing of the sort. He insisted that "the evidence is overwhelming" that al-Qaeda had been in high-level contact with Saddam Hussein's regime when the "evidence" was virtually nonexistent. And he repeatedly asserted that Iraq had a menacing nuclear weapons program. As a used-car dealer, he would have no return customers.

Still, every dog has his day, and Cheney is barking up a storm on the efficacy of what can colloquially be called torture. He says he knows of two CIA memos that support his contention that the harsh interrogation methods worked and that many lives were saved. "That's what's in those memos," he told Schieffer. They talk "specifically about different attack planning that was underway and how it was stopped."

Cheney says he once had the memos in his files and has since asked that they be released. He's got a point. After all, this is not merely some political catfight conducted by bloggers, although it is a bit of that, too. Inescapably, it is about life and death -- not ideology, but people hurling themselves from the burning World Trade Center. If Cheney is right, then let the debate begin: What to do about enhanced interrogation methods? Should they be banned across the board, always and forever? Can we talk about what is and not just what ought to be?

In a similar vein, can we also find out what Nancy Pelosi knew and when she knew it? If she did indeed know about waterboarding back in 2003, that would hardly make her a war criminal. But if she knew and insists otherwise, that would make her one of those people who will not acknowledge that the immediate post-Sept. 11 atmosphere allowed for methods that now seem abhorrent. Certain Democratic politicians remind me of what Oscar Levant supposedly said of Doris Day: "I knew [her] before she was a virgin." They have no memory of who they used to be.

Back in my college days, there was much late-night discussion about the "free man" -- not politically free, mind you, but free of bourgeois cultural restraints. (The once-important writer Jean Genet, a former petty criminal and prostitute, was often cited.) In political terms, Cheney has been a free man ever since he eschewed any presidential ambitions. He became the most impolitic of politicians and continues in that role, taking neither a vow of penitence nor a vow of silence in his vice presidential afterlife. He says the issues are too important for him to be, as is traditional, mum.

He is right about that. The run-up to the disastrous Iraq war was notable for its smothering lack of debate. That served us poorly then and it would serve us poorly now if people who know something about the utility, not to mention the morality, of enhanced interrogation techniques keep their mouths shut. The Obama administration ought to call Cheney's bluff, if it is that, and release the memos. If even a stopped clock is right twice a day, this could be Cheney's time.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: CarolC
Date: 12 May 09 - 03:26 PM

It has been reported that, according to the FBI and others, the people who were being tortured actually gave more information prior to their being tortured than after it commenced - that the suspects clammed up after the torture started, and then started cooperating again after it stopped.

It has also been reported that the Obama administration is thinking that, now that Cheney has demanded the release of all of the classified records, it might be a good idea to do just that. And some are saying that what is contained in the records that have not yet been released is even more damning than what is contained in the ones that have been released. The person reporting said that if those records are released, things are going to look even worse for Cheney than they do now.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: beardedbruce
Date: 12 May 09 - 03:30 PM

It has been reported that Elvis is alive, and LGM were the ones to destroy the WTC....



"The run-up to the disastrous Iraq war was notable for its smothering lack of debate. That served us poorly then and it would serve us poorly now if people who know something about the utility, not to mention the morality, of enhanced interrogation techniques keep their mouths shut. The Obama administration ought to call Cheney's bluff, if it is that, and release the memos."

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: CarolC
Date: 12 May 09 - 03:43 PM

Well, I guess we'll just see how it all unfolds, won't we?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Peter T.
Date: 13 May 09 - 03:09 PM

Hard to believe anything so stupid from a supposedly smart bunch of people. Obama is now proposing not to release the photographic record from Abu Ghraib, after he let it be known that he would. What does he think is now going to happen? Everyone is just going to nod and say, sure? No one is going to imagine the worst? This is the sort of monumentally stupid thing the Bush administration did, turning everything it did into toxic suspicion.   Executive branch toxicitiy strikes (as I have predicted since the start of all this).

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: Riginslinger
Date: 13 May 09 - 04:52 PM

All they need to do is to show a picture of one of the prisoners sitting around calmly eating a ham sandwich, and all of the viewers will yawn, go to bed, and the issue will be over.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama and torture
From: robomatic
Date: 13 May 09 - 08:41 PM

I was listening to some of the issue today on the radio, and enjoyed the comment "people resort to torture because it's easier to hit them than to outsmart them."

In the literary vein, some of John Le Carre's earlier works contain some superb examples of nonviolent interrogation, particularly the series including Tinker Tailor and Smiley's People (and dramatized with Sir Alec Guinness in the 1980's).

As for ex Vice President Cheney, I enjoy his appearance on the talkies, because (a)he has every right to argue the efficacy of the methods being used by his version of government and (b) I think he is an excellent argument for the Democratic Party and the current administration smells better all the time by comparison to the previous, and Cheney sharpens this perception. Let him and Rush Limbaugh fight it out in the mud, one pig with another, and let us piously remember the likes of William F Buckley and Everett Dirksen.