Al-Gonzo Okays Torture Prior to Torture Memo Saying Torture Is Okay

Maybe Alberto needs to get all lawyered up?

GOP Cons End "Era of Apology" -- Without Even Apologizing

Michael Steele Hails End of "Era of Apologizing."

You have to give them points for creating their own reality. As in unilaterally ending an era it just unilaterally created.

But then you have to take all them points away for their destroying our reality.

I just wish they would shut up and slink off. Really, I do.

Oh Lookee -- Sadists4Christ Have Been Running an UnConstitutional Theocracy All This Time!!

Yes, Virginia, there IS a Separation of Church and State. Well, sorta. But, you know, sometimes there just isn't, and so we have to do stuff we don't really wanna do. Like not having a separation of church and state. And like torturing people. We know it's wrong, but we do it anyway, because we had to. I mean, we had to.

Like Rummy had no choice when he blatantly shamelessly resorting to using specifically Christian battle themes and quotes as Bible propaganda to propagandize his message to the troops.

Sure, it's illegal. And unconstitutional. But God told him to do it? Well, I don't know what God did, reallly. I dunno. Does Rummy think that God's been updating His communication stream? Why separate church and statet when you can update church as state. It makes a brave new world, don'tcha get it? Next thing you know, Christ won't get tortured and die on the cross, He'll get tortured and then waterboarded to death. (Then we'll all be forced to wear little golden waterboards around our necks. . . ?)

Anyhow. Wow. This blatant bible stuff is real disturbing. I mean, sure looks like Rummy's got issues.

Hands up, boys and girls, if you think that little Donny Rumsfeld got the living crap beaten out of him on a regular basis by a big powerful omniscient omnipotent Daddy, one who told little Donny that it was all his fault that Daddy (or maybe Mommy) had to make little Donny pay for his misdeeds with pain?


---hat-tip to Revpaperboy at The Woodshed.

Suffer the Little Children to Come Unto . . .

Department of "No, we can't care for the children we already have, so let's browbeat women into having more and more little unwanted children regardless of ability properly to care for them, and if guilt-tripping women doesn't work, there's always the laws of government-forced maternity which protect a rapist's right to breed, because really, so what?"

VICTORVILLE, Calif.—Investigators say the parents of a 2-month-old boy have been jailed for child abuse after the infant was hospitalized in Victorville with broken legs, wrists and ribs.

Yvette Barragon took the infant to St. Mary Medical Center with a swollen leg earlier this month, saying her toddler pulled too hard on the infant's leg.

Further examination determined the infant had a two broken femurs, two fractured wrists, a break in his lower leg and four broken ribs.

San Bernardino County sheriff's spokeswoman Karen Hunt says the 23-year-old mother and the child's father 29-year-old Gilbert Scott were arrested and booked for investigation of willful harm to a child.

But wait! There's more!.

A 28-year-old San Mateo man pleaded not guilty Tuesday to beating his 7-year-old son for getting two minuses on his report card, a prosecutor said.

Solomona Tafao allegedly struck the child with a belt 10 times, punched him in the shoulder and kicked him multiple times, said San Mateo County Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe. Tafao is scheduled to go to trial June 29.

During an earlier attack, prosecutors say Tafao hit the boy in the head for speaking disrespectfully to his grandmother. The child's head then struck the corner of the kitchen table, Wagstaffe said.

So Daddy hits his son in the head for "speaking disrespectfully" to Grammy? Is that where Daddy got his awesome parenting skills from? Or did they just spontaneous arise? Will Little Johnny be recruited for for the CIA/Gitmo Future Torturers of America?

The theme: people who love you get to hit you and hurt you.


Link here.

Media Whore Media to Elizabeth Edwards: Shut Up, B*tch

Yes, it's all her fault. It is all the fault of Elizabeth Edwards. What did she hope to gain from writing this book, the bitch? I hear there's a back-lash building against her!

No need to be ashamed to join the media whore media blame the victim-fest; it's all the rage, see more via VastLeft at Corrente. Click through to blame.

My personal fave remains the still-employed the incomparably superficial and nasty MoDo of the New York Times, who penned a breathtakingly sleazy anti-Elizabeth Edwards column, excoriating Elizabeth for (ooh!) writing a book (ooh! do they let girls DO that?) that has the unladylike gall to mention (ooh! uppity!) her husband's affair (ooh! shut UP, bitch!):

[she] has dragged him back into the public square for a flogging

.

Boundary issues much, MoDo?

Scores Tortured to Death or Murdered in US Custody: Pro-"Life," Pro-Torture Crowd Revels in Moral Bankrupcty

What is wrong with these people?

Oh. Right. I remember now. They have no mirror neurons.

So much for the noble rules of war and the rule of law.

[T]he May 10, 2005, Bush Administration torture memo by Stephen Bradbury notes that doctors were nearby to perform a tracheotomy if during waterboarding the suspect is approaching death.

“Most seriously, for reasons of physical fatigue of psychological resignation, the subject may simply give up, allowing excessive filling of the airways and loss of consciousness,” Bradbury wrote. “An unresponsive subject should be righted immediately, and the integrator should deliver a sub-xyphoid thrust to expel the water. If this fails to restore normal breathing, aggressive medical intervention is required….’”

The memo says CIA doctors were on hand with necessary equipment to perform a tracheotomy if necessary during waterboarding sessions: “[W]e are informed that the necessary emergency medical equipment is always present—although not visible to the detainee—during any application of the waterboard.”

Technorati Tags: torture, torture memos
torture memos

The Heartbreak of MNRS Goes On, But Unmanly Christian Minister Comes Out Against Torture!!

Every real Christian rilly needs to cowboy up. Especially this here minister guy, givng aid and comfort to the enemy, a lily-livered gentle Jesus freak minister Richard Land actually coming out against torture.

Sheesh.

Is nothing sacred?

Dr. Richard Land, who heads the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, says he believes the interrogation technique of waterboarding is torture because it inflicts personal physical harm and "contravenes an individual's personhood and their humanity."

In a statement, Land said waterboarding "violates everything we believe in as a country," arguing "There are some things you should never do to another human being, no matter how horrific the things they have done. If you do so, you demean yourself to their level." Land explained his stance to OneNewsNow.

"I support capital punishment, but I don't think I should support capital punishment unless I am willing to personally give the lethal injection," Land says. "Well, the more I thought about and prayed about it, I couldn't waterboard somebody -- and if I couldn't waterboard them, then I don't have the right to ask others to do it or to condone their doing it."

In his written statement, Land states he sees no circumstance in which torture should be a permissible interrogation technique employed by American officials -- "even if the authorities believe a prisoner has information that might involve national security."

Gol'durn long hair Pussy Christ and his long-haired Pussy Christ defenders. Get rid of them!

What did Jesus do while being tortured? Oh, he'd prolly said sompin' girlie-man like: "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" or some shit like that, the pussy.

Why didn't He just take it like a man, and say -- "BRING IT ON!"

No wonder God forsook Him.

The Heartbreak of Mirror Neuron Deficiency Syndrome

Three cases of MNDS (Mirror Neuron Deficiency Syndrome) in the news, and 2 cases of mirror neuron abundance.

Tennis pro Yelena Dokic's father proudly admits he beat her, says he did it for her sake. Then he reveals he, too, was phsically abused as a child, and asserts that multi-generational child abuse is a rilly rilly good thing. {see alice miller, sidebar].

Face transplant person, as reported by our minimizing media whore media:

Buried down on paragraph six, we finally find that face transplant recipient's facelessness was due to domestic violence: uh, that would mean, in this case, having been shot in the face by her own husband. Who received all of seven years. Wow. No doubt the Mrs. richly deserve it? 'Twas all her fault?

And here's the odious Kathleen Parker, at the forefront of the forefront of the forced maternity crowd, still wanting to cram her personal religious beliefs down the throats of all those who do not share them. Mirror-neuron deficiency syndrome (MNDS) strikes again. So much compassion for the pre-born, and none for the post-born. Let the little unwanted feti come forth be abused, neglected and then grow up to be perps and victims who perpetrate and victimize. We can't properly care for the kids we already have, so, you know, bring 'em on!

Fom the mirron-neuron-ly well-endowed Lambert at Corrente (& on to Froomkin), Torture the Fault of Peasants, Not Versailles.

Yesterday's News

Nothing to see here. move along.

Hello Dalai

Nearly 16,000 people turn out for the Dalai Lama at Gillette Stadium.

Is Rape Serious? Is Torture Serious?What About the Heartache of Mirror Neuron Retardation Syndrome?

Hey, there, boys and girls! Let's play pattern recognition!

What do these two stories and mirror neuron retardation have in common?



Nicholas Kristoff: Is Rape Serious? Answer: no.


Is torture serious? Answer: no.

But it pays well. CIA does.

Become a CIA Torturer. Thousand bucks a day.

That ain't workin.'

That's the way you do it.


Money for nothin' and the chicks for free.

Newsweek Whitewashes Waterboarding Torture: Would That Count As Numbing & Avoidance? Why, Yes! It Would!

This person, who is, apparently, a professional (sic) Newsweek media person, actually said this:

[T]o pursue criminal charges against officials at the highest levels—including the former president and the former vice president . . . would set a terrible precedent. . . . That is not to say presidents and vice presidents are always above the law . .

But -- sometimes they're above the law?

And this Newsweek person thinks that committing torture and undermining the rule of law does not set a terrible precedent?

What is wrong with the pro-torture crowd? What is wrong with their media whore media enablers? Why does this Newsweek person even have a job? Why is the media whore media working so very hard to spin and spew cute little minimizing numbing & avoidance fairy tales, working so hard to let torturers get away with torture?


Yes, thanks, Mr. Newsweek, I'd love to have another serving of moral bankruptcy. Please, sir, may I have some more?


---
Thoughts on teh Pro-Torture Crowd: Lambert. BTD. RJ Eskow.

WaPo Headline Puts Torture in Quotes. Well, Torture's Not Quite the Same as "Torture," Is It?

Military Agency Warned Against 'Torture'.

An otherwise fine article on BushCheneyRrummy admin being warned that torture does not produce useful info, besides being, you know, "wrong."

My beef with the headline is that it continues the neo-Orwellian habit of the US media whore media to minimize torture by calling it "harsh interrogation," "harsh methods," making it not really torture because if you don't say it's torture then it just isn't, is it?

None dare call it torture?

Language: this is how we "create" our "reality."

Court Rules Gitmo Detainees Are Not Persons

See, if they were persons, you'd have to NOT torture them.

But if you change their label from PERSON to NON-PERSON, you can do anything you want.

Court Rules.

The Pro-Torture Crowd Retards Run Amok -- Empathy Will Get You In Big Trouble

Told you it was all about they're missing big fat chunk of their [empathy] brain, did I not?

Let's remember the death of this soldier:

"A. Peterson, 27, a Flagstaff, Ariz., native, served with C Company, 311th Military Intelligence BN, 101st Airborne. Peterson was an Arabic-speaking interrogator assigned to the prison at our air base in troubled Tal Afar in northwestern Iraq. . .

"The official probe of [Peterson's] death would later note that earlier [Peterson] had been "reprimanded" for showing "empathy" for the prisoners."


Come on, pro-torture retards. Come clean. This is what you did. In our name. Well, not in my name.

The soldier who refused to torture, Peterson, wound up dead.

Of course, Peterson's death is still being described as suicide? Pftt.
Tell it to the marines.

Why It's OK to Call the Pro-Torture Crowd "Retards"

That's because they're actually missing part of their brains.

OK, so maybe that doesn't make them retarded. It makes them handicapped.

Handicapped? Is that the right word? How about "deficient"?

We're not just talking about Cheney and Rummy. And Geoffrey Abu Ghraib Gitmo Colonel.

But talking head Peggy Noonan. She's not playing with a full deck, either.

And talking head Cliff May. Oy. I can remember way back when Cliff was Clifford, and a liberal. I think. Didn't think he was pro-torture. Why would anyone be? What happened? Did someone brainwash the miror neurons out of his brain?

Beyond finally acknowledging the dreadful state of moral decay that has crippled the empathy centers of vast numbers of Americans, there is the question of -- how did this plague come to pass?

Who or what removed/inactivated the mirror neurons from millions of Americans?

What happened?

Did Mommy long ago leave out the instruction on not doing shitty things to others, in particular, not hurting other living beings?


LEARNING MOMENT FOR GEORGE AND MOMMY

It's ok to kick a rock. It has no feelings.

Rock. Frog. They're different.

Stop. No. That's a frog, Georgie, don't put that firecracker in the frog, George. No. I said, no.

Stop it, George!

George, if you put a lit firecracker in one more frog, I am going to slap you silly.

There. [sound of slap]

Now, do as you're told.

Stop torturing those frogs.

[sound of brutal slap]

Got that, boy?





Yup. Got it.

Anyone for ahimsa?

Torture By Any Other Name Would Be "All-American Harsh Interrogation Techniques Move Along Don't Think Twice It's Alright"

How could anyone think that chinese water torture was unfit to become american water torture, eh?

Yes, it's that funny. Blame for torture now goes to failure to understand the lessons of history, thus being condemned to repeat it.

Haha.

According to several former top officials involved in the discussions seven years ago, they did not know that the military training program, called SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, had been created decades earlier to give American pilots and soldiers a sample of the torture methods used by Communists in the Korean War, methods that had wrung false confessions from Americans.

Even George J. Tenet, the C.I.A. director who insisted that the agency had thoroughly researched its proposal and pressed it on other officials, did not examine the history of the most shocking method, the near-drowning technique known as waterboarding.

The top officials he briefed did not learn that waterboarding had been prosecuted by the United States in war-crimes trials after World War II and was a well-documented favorite of despotic governments since the Spanish Inquisition; one waterboard used under Pol Pot was even on display at the genocide museum in Cambodia.

The top officials, not having studied that particular part of history, you know, the "we don't do shitty things to others" part, couldn't see that, well, drowning someone might, well, you know, be regarded as -- well, chinese water torture. No mirror neurons. Slept through that class in college?

Cyclic existence? Samsara as usual? We're sorry, nobody told us that pulling the wings off butterflies was wrong? What about putting lit firecrackers in toads? No one could have foreseen . . .

CIA/US Oympic Waterboard Torture Team Wins Best in Show

Well!

Don't these CIA guys and gals have the very best work ethic in the universe?

They sure were following orders!

Waterboarding people three times a day? Is that what is meant by "three squares"? Or is that a type for three quarts? Probably more like 3 gallons? I dunno. How much water does it take to drown a guy or gal? Not so much really. Plus, it's earth week. No waste water wanted.

But you have to admit the zeal of the US Waterboard Torture Team is/was magnificent.

So. Celebrate their success. Just do it. Instead of getting all bitchy and PMS and hot an bothered about silly pussy things like moral bankrupcty and undermining the rule of law, shouldn't we join Obama and Rahm and just STFU?

Shouldn't we be passing the hat around to support them, taking up a collection so they can afford to develop some mirror neurons?

Waterboarding [E.g. Chinese Water Torture] Used 266 Times on 2 Suspects.

2 suspects, eh?


Would that be -- Cheney? And Rummy?


Technorati Tags: torture, Bybee, CIA, memo, moral bankrupcty

Bushist Fascist Teabag Sadist Mafia Sez: Hey, There Boyz 'n Girlz! Remember --Torture WORKS!!

No, it's not like anyone likes inflicting pain on others. (Well, of course there was that toad-exploder thing, the dobsondogbeater thing, the vitter diaper thing, I forget what else. Oh. Yeah. The canned hunt/killing for fun kinda thing.)

How can we ever hope to save the all-important moral values of Western Christian civilization if we don't torture other people? AND -- their kids?

Abu Zubaydah had provided much valuable information under less severe treatment, and the harsher handling [eg. the torture] produced no breakthroughs, according to one former intelligence official with direct knowledge of the case. Instead, watching his torment caused great distress to his captors, the official said. [instant karma much?]

Even for those who believed that brutal treatment could produce results, the official said, “seeing these depths of human misery and degradation has a traumatic effect.” [told you so. and of course, you'd think a normal person, finally noticing that he was doing something "wrong" might u, you know, "stop."]

C.I.A. officers adopted these techniques only after the Justice Department had given its official approval on Aug. 1, 2002, in one of four formerly secret legal memos on interrogation that were released Thursday.

A footnote to another of the memos described a rift between line officers questioning Abu Zubaydah at a secret C.I.A. prison in Thailand and their bosses at headquarters, and asserted that the brutal treatment may have been “unnecessary.”

Unnecessary?

Oh. Ya think?

Technorati Tags: torture, Bybee, CIA, memo, moral bankrupcty

Secret Bushist Fascist Pro-Torture Sadist Sez: DON'T TELL THE TERRORISTS ABOUT THE CHINESE WATER TORTURE! THEY'LL IMPLANT EXTRA LUNGS!

God, I do hate the stupid. I really do. I know it's wrong of me -- even rong of me. But I do.

F*ck.

From [Cheney? Rummy] some dude some dude at Politico listened to:

“It's damaging because these are techniques that work, and by Obama's action today, we are telling the terrorists what they are,” the official said. “We have laid it all out for our enemies. This is totally unnecessary. … Publicizing the techniques does grave damage to our national security by ensuring they can never be used again . . .

No, really, it's true, we need to keep the whole BAMBOO SLIVERS UNDER THE FINGERNAILS THING reallly hush-hush. You talk about stuff like that, and whoa, you SO lose the Element of Surprise!

Yeah, we all better shut up about BOILING PEOPLE IN OIL because really, it might give them ideas, you know what copycats them terrists is.

And really, STFU about all our copyrighted 60 WAYS OF MAKING HUMANS REALLY REALLY REALLY WISH THEY WERE DEAD because nobody could have imagined -- oh wait, that's about the other -- because if they find out what we did, then bad things will happen. Like they'll to it to us. Of course, they want to do those thing to us anyway.

Or more like, what if they find out that we were like into anal rape of kids well that wouldn't be good would it? Remember those tapes at Abu Ghraib that so suddenly disappeared because they were like, um, just toooooo awful? Well this stuff is just toooo awful, too. That's why we want to shut up about it, and we're hassling Obama into shutting up about it, and that's why we're going to get away with it because all the evil things we've done are just tooooo vile, so, you know, STFU!! How hard is that?

It's not like we planned it that way. Oh well, of course we did, but like, hey. Any means to the end. Wait that's a commie thing. Like being a socialist. Socialist means someone who wants to take his kids to the doctor. We want doctors to revive our torturees so they're awake enough to FEEL THEIR excruciating pain. Now, that's not socialist. We bushist fascist teabag sadists, of course, feel no pain, we just inflict it. On others. We don't even feel our own pain.

Wow. There ya go.


WE BUSHIST FASCIST SADIST TEABAGGERS DON'T FEEL ANYONE'S PAIN, ESPECIALLY NOT OUR OWN.

I mean, how cool is that? See? Torture works!



Technorati Tags: torture, Bybee, CIA, memo, moral bankrupcty

None Dare Call It Torture. Not Quite "None," But Close

However, turns out that NOT prosecuting torture is a violation of international law. Oopsie.

The United Nation’s top torture investigator has suggested it is illegal under International law for President Barack Obama to announce that the United States government has no intention of prosecuting low-level CIA officers who carried out torture sanctioned by the Bush Administration.

President Barack Obama’s release on Thursday of four Bush administration memos sanctioning torture has been widely praised. However, word that government will go so far as to offer a fully-paid legal defense for agents who applied torture techniques to terror war prisoners has triggered loud criticism.

“Like all other contracting states to the UN convention against torture, the US has committed to conduct criminal investigations of torture and to bring all persons to court against whom there is sound evidence,” Manfred Nowak, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on torture, told Austrian weekly paper Der Standard.

“They are party to the convention and the convention is very, very clear,” Nowak told the paper. “The fact that you carried out an order doesn’t relieve you of your responsibility.”

“In a brief telephone interview with The Associated Press, Manfred Nowak [...] said the United States had committed itself under the U.N. Convention against Torture to make torture a crime and to prosecute those suspected of engaging in it,” reported the San Francisco Chronicle.

Technorati Tags: torture, Bybee, CIA, memo, moral bankrupcty

Note to teabaggers: pay your taxes like a man

This is why:

Desperate veterans turn to suicide.

You break it, you buy it.

Several branches of the military are reporting significant spikes in the number of suicides committed by both active-duty troops and veterans returning from duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Experts are calling the number of military-related suicides sweeping the country an "epidemic."

Survivors of veterans who committed suicide are starting to file lawsuits, accusing the VA of medical malpractice. The agency also has come under attack by lawmakers and veterans' groups charging that it failed to treat injured veterans for post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury, the signature wounds of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The agency also has been accused of manipulating suicide statistics to downplay the problem and systematically misdiagnosing returning combat soldiers who suffer mental illness because their resources are tapped.

I wrote long ago about the cons deliberately mis-diagnosing PTSD in an attempt to deny services. Click on PTSD; I can't elaborate because I'm off to a seminar. On treating PTSD, as it happens. More later.

Technorati Tags: torture, Bybee, CIA, memo, moral bankrupcty

You Can Never Be Too Rich, Too Thin or Too Traumatized. or, PAY YOUR [expletive deleted/warningintentional use of sexist frame] TAXES LIKE A MAN

Teabagging. [coughchoke spit].

So the cons are trying to tough that one out? Bwahahah. Now teabagging is their BRAND.

And they're too pussy to pay their taxes.

Oy.

So, some otherwise perfectly nice people for whom I was set to volunteer my valuable time and really very high end clinical skills [it's not me, it's my training] to treat Vets with PTSD.

Some otherwise perfectly nice people started saying some critical things about Obama [which I am perfectly capable of doing myself, mind you] and I reminded them that in addition to being a card-carrying buddhist [well, actually I didn't remind them of that] I am a card-carrying bleeding heart liberal [and why else would I be offering to work for NOTHING].

And one of them said it was fine as long as I wasn't a socialist.


No, really.


I kid you not.

I thinktheir idea of being a socialist means being someone who's for universal health care, btw.

So -- what am I, boys and girls? Socialist?

How about "commie
pinko"?

Dept. of "As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap," or: Build Roads While Wearing Sad Faces of Regret re: the Decay of Our Puny Social Infrastructure

Hey. Turns out the Dems don't give a crap about the sick, poor, the insane, the elderly, the young, the vulnerable either. And here I was just blaming the Republicans. But there's enough blame to go around, really. Because, you know, these are hard times. Somebody has to suffer. If they're already suffering, what's the bad thing about piling on a little more, eh?

States Slashing Social Programs for the Vulnerable.

No reason to slash progams for the invulnerable, is there?

Saudis, Si! Cuba, No!

It's obvious that it's OK to trade with the Saudis, who treat their women like dirt, and it's OK to sell off our country to the genocidal Red Chinese, but Cuba?

Pfft.

Why would we trade with them? Why would we visit them? They've got a health care system that actually works! Can't expose our population to that, can we?

In the meantime, we're still dependent on and trading with a country that thinks marrying off 8-year-old girls is swell. Saudi Arabia. Marrying off an 8-year old girl to her Daddy's 47-year-old male "close friend."

"It is incorrect to say that it's not permitted to marry off girls who are 15 and younger," Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh, the kingdom's grand mufti, said in remarks last January quoted in the regional Al-Hayat newspaper. "A girl aged 10 or 12 can be married. Those who think she's too young are wrong and they are being unfair to her."

Saudi, si! Porque no?