You mean I should build rapport with them and recognize their humanity? Normally I just torture them into agreeing with me.
all your torture-loving relatives at holiday debates
We, too, celebrate the annual Presidents' Day Holiday with several rousing rounds of Lincoln Douglas! I'm glad that your family also carries on the great tradition.
Nobody loves America like the immigrants love America!
That's a pretty good piece, ogged. I'm not sure it offers "answers" about truth and reconciliation commissions, though.
I'm not sure it offers "answers" about truth and reconciliation commissions, though.
He answers questions about them, jerko. Now come here, I have an iron I want to show you.
Now come here, I have an iron I want to show you.
Dude, we already know you're fastidious. No need to go all domestic on Tim.
5: Effectively, he says, "Tough question":
A lot of people want trials, not just trials for those who did terrible things but also trials for those who had command responsibility and should have, and could have, prevented torture. And nothing predicts future torture quite like past impunity. But trials are an imperfect solution. They can deeply divide a society. The Argentine government tried the generals, but when it tried notorious junior officers responsible for torture, it faced a series of rebellions. And we certainly need to have a final open accounting of what was done, but truth commissions also have a mixed history, sometimes helping and other times promoting amnesia.But I'm not sure we advance much beyond that, and I think everyone (save maybe Emerson) is already willing to concede that it's a tough question.
Another point: Everyone forgets that the Iranian revolution of 1978-1979 was the revolution against torture. When the Shah criticized Khomayni as a blackrobed Islamic medieval throwback, Khomayni replied, look who is talking, the man who tortures. This was powerful rhetoric for recruiting people, then as it is now. People joined the revolutionary opposition because of the Shah's brutality, and they remembered who installed him. If anyone wants to know why Iranians hated the US so, all they have to do is ask what America's role was in promoting torture in Iran. Torture not only shaped the revolution, it was the factor that has deeply poisoned the relationship of Iran with the West. So why trust the West again? And the Iranian leadership doesn't.
We ain't so bright.
the Iranian revolution of 1978-1979 was the revolution against torture
The thesis of my eighth-grade social studies research paper. Which I might still have.
We ain't so bright.
Was that ever really in question?
This is a ridiculously unrealistic thing to wonder. But I do wonder, if we started pursuing a reasonable, unbloody, humanitarianly sane foreign policy consistently from here on out, how many decades it would be before anyone trusted us again.
Eh. Working makes me sentimental.
9: This must be posted.
*rummages for 10th grade paper on Guatemala in 1954.*
11: It actually depresses me to think of just how thoroughly unrealistic that is.
Yeah, Americans have forgotten about SAVAK.
14: Have not. Wasn't he the guy who Spock's fiancee wanted to marry in that Star Trek episode with the duel?
He won, but only after Kirk shouted "Death to America!"
14, 15: I thought he was the game show host with the letters.
Americans have forgotten about SAVAK.
Yeah, but be fair, how many Iranians know about MODOK? There's a lot of ignorance on both sides here.
The thesis of my eighth-grade social studies research paper.
What did you get?
It actually depresses me to think of just how thoroughly unrealistic that is.
You know, I actually think we would be fine pretty quickly. We're the biggest guy on the block by a long shot; people want to believe we're sane and good.
15: Might you be thinking of Spock's dad, Sarek?
20: Huh. Apparently there's a Saavik:
Saavik helped Admiral Kirk return Spock to Vulcan where his body and katra were reunited. After that, she remained on Vulcan with Spock's family for reasons never explained on screen; the film's writers intended that this was because she was pregnant with Spock's child as a result of the pon farr, but no references to her pregnancy made it into the finished movie and it was never followed up, thereby once again placing this development into a grey area in terms of canon.
Is LB a Trekkie?
You were in 10th grade in 1954, oudemia? I wouldn't have guessed that.
I clicked on your MODOK link, felix. You will pay for that someday. Oh yes, you will pay.
some people just don't want to learn about MODOKs, I guess
it's sad, really
some day there will be no MODOKs left in the world, Walt, and you'll realize how much you miss them
felix has been posting a lot of funny comments recently. He has inspired me to emphasize quality over quantity.
We all need to accept that, in opposing the power of the state and capital, we will be disappeared, we will be tortured and we will be murdered. Then we need to start living our lives with those truths in mind.
"I die happy on the gallows, so confident am I that the hundreds and thousands to whom I have spoken will remember my words. When you shall have hanged us, then they WILL do the bombthrowing! In this hope do I say to you: I despise you, I despise your order, your laws, your force propped authority. Hang me for it."
--Louis Lingg
Just because I did my 8th grade History Day L.A. paper on the L.A. Dept of Water and Power doesn't mean I've been fixated on the same topic for about twenty-five years now. I occasionally think about other things.
28: Then we need to start living our lives with those truths in mind.
minneapolitan, don't make me cry right now. And you know that most people do live their lives with those truths out of mind, and so do not oppose.
History Day L.A. paper on the L.A. Dept of Water and Power
So you watched Chinatown?
11: LB, its going to take a very long time, read Legachy of Ashes: A History of the CIA. Basically, we've been fucking around in other people's business, and badly at that, all over the world for decades.
and badly at that
That was indeed my main takeaway from Legacy of Ashes -- the sheer, amateur-hour, cowboyishness of the CIA's hallowed "covert ops" ... hallowed like one's memory of that road trip we took when we were all stoned that weekend, dude? Remember how we totaled Jerry's car? Wasn't that rad?
In that context, the Agency's response when told it would be interrogating terrorist captives after 9/11 is all part of a piece: hm, dunno about that ... let me look in the storage room ... hey, lookit this cool thing on "Phoenix Program" in Nam! Okay, we're ready now!
The # 1 reason for the cloak of secrecy is to conceal how little thought and effort went into these oh-so-important tasks.
Anderson - not to mention the constant lying to congress and the president (and even internal lying by the ops chief to the director), which obviously continues to this day.
The Argentine government tried the generals, but when it tried notorious junior officers responsible for torture, it faced a series of rebellions.
Fortunately, the Argentine people created their own punishments.
I just got an email re Prof. Rajali's appearances next month in NYC:
Monday, March 10 1:20 - 2 pm
Sponsor: Leonard Lopate Show
Location: 1 Centre Street, 27th Floor
Tuesday, March 11 5:30 PM
Sponsor: Intelligence Squared Debate
Location: Asia Society and Museum
725 Park Avenue (at East 70th St).
Format: Oxford Style Debate on Interrogation of Terror Suspects
(for the motion, Heather MacDonald, Mirko Bagaric, and Rick
Francona;
against the Motion: Bob Baer, Jack Cloonan, Darius Rejali)
Event is sold out but standby walk-ins available http://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/Event.aspx?Event=25
Event aired on WABC and 100 NPR stations
Wednesday, March 12 6:30-8 pm
Sponsor: Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law
(in conjunction with Human Rights Watch)
Location: Lester Pollack Colloquium at NYU School of Law's Furman Hall,
located at 245 Sullivan Street, between Washington Square South
and W. 3rd Street
Format: Lecture, Q&A -- Stacey Sullivan from HRW and Jonathan Hafetz
from the Brennan Center will participate.
Thursday, March 13, 2-4 pm
Sponsor: Center for Human Rights,
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Location: 899 Tenth Avenue building (btw 58th and 59th Streets)
Room 630 T
Format: "Torture, Democracy and Our Future" Lecture, Q&A
Thursday, March 13, 5:30-7 pm
Sponsor: Carnegie Council of Ethics, NY
Location: 170 East 64th Street
Format: Speaker and discussion/question and answer period