Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

Yep
 

Balderdash.
 

I am going to surprise everyone by accepting his apology, even though he really didn't actually apologise for his words, but rather for offending people by them. We all know that he is just covering his you-know-what. But being a christian, I am disposed to forgive him. But rest assured I will not forget. And hopefully the fine people of Illinois will not forget either, and he will be voted out of office next election. Now, let's move on.
 

By the way, if the name "Dubois" is pronounced "Doobwah" does that mean the name "Illinois" should really be pronounced "Illinwah"?
 

B, I love that word.

Mark, It IS prnounced that way, sort of. 'Round here anyway.

Ill-in-NOah.

Some say: Ill-in-noy.

Actually, I pronouce it as a combination of those two.

But the less than erudite also pernounce it Ill-i-NOISE.
 

By the way, I meant Durbin should step down from his party leadership post, not from his Senate seat.
 

I don't get why what he said is supposed to be offensive. Like, at all. Torture is offensive.

I can't believe y'all are calling for Durbin to lose his seat because he stood up and said so. The Nazis *did* torture people. We *are* torturing people. If we don't want to be compared to torturers, we ought not be torturing. And in point of fact, he did *not* make that comparison: he said, if we didn't know better, we'd think that these descriptions would be coming from some other group, some group we associate with torture. And the fact that these descriptions are of things *we* are doing is deeply shameful. Which it damn well is.

But y'all are more worried about him using the *word* "Nazi" than you are about what's actually *happening*?

At the very least I hope that this puts paid to the idea that it's the left that's hung up on "politically correct language."
 

Jump in to the unrealted post conversation.

1) If Illinois does follow French spelling as Dubois does, it would seem logical that at one time it may have followed French pronunciation. However not up on my etymology of Illinois.

2) ER: Just found out that I was right and wrong about my handle pecheur that you asked 100 years ago about. There is a word for preacher in French that is extremely close precheur. But the context that I saw it in was negative (meaning moralizer). I am wondering if there is a positive context of predicateur. Either way i learned something new today.
 

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I have to agree with B-phd on this one.

Durbin is like the child who said "The Emperor has no clothes!" It's true, the things going on at Gitmo are shameful. I am embarrassed that our folks have stooped to this. I remember when our country was proud to stand head and shoulders above the rest of the world in the way we treated prisoners of war. Not so in this situation.

But for the use of the one word, Durbin's message could have been better received, perhaps. But too many have been so eager not to be painted with the N-brush that they've completely written off the content of Durbin's message.

No, we're not involved in a Hitler-esque ethnic cleansing, but there's no reason to be proud about the torture that is taking place. We need to clean up our act, even in the treatment of those we hope never walk free again.
 

B, and Trixie, I can't believe you think that what we are doing in Gitmo is torture! Maybe you missed the news article that said the only thing in that memo Durbin read was actually in it was that the prisoner was chained to the floor and the rest was conjecture. In other words, Durbin made most of it up!
The prisoners there eat better than I do, in fact, they eat better than the soldiers in the field in Iraq.
Also, they are treated with the utmost respect to their religion, the guards taking special care to handle their Q'urans according to their religious laws, supplying them with prayer beads and rugs, even pointing them in the direction of Mecca so they can say their daily prayers, which, by the way, are broadcast on the PA system there 5 times a day. A stark contrast from the way they treat our innocent citizens. If what we are doing constitutes torture, then what do you call what they do to our people?
 

Here are a few links:

http://lists.meer.net/pipermail/icujp-news/2004-November/000034.html

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0505190306may19,1,278199.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/vp01.cfm?outfit=pmt&folder=891&paper=2357

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200412/s1255202.htm

http://www.voanews.com/english/2004-11-30-voa74.cfm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3533804.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4163911.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3706050.stm

What is the basis for your belief that the prisoners at Guantanamo are well-treated and well-fed? Because the administration says so? Do you have any evidence other than official denials?

How "they" (who?) treat "our people" is not relevant. We are not responsible for what other nations do. We *are* responsible for what we do. Saying, "they're worse" is the kind of thing a little kid says when he gets in trouble--"oh, but everyone else is doing it." I wouldn't accept that kind of excuse from my child, and I sure won't accept it from my country.
 

Here are some more links:

http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR510632005

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/13/politics/13gitmo.html?ex=1276315200&en=9dd1b075e5c81c00&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/010999.html
 

B, I, myself, never said a cotton-pickin' word about Durbin resigning his seat.

I said he should step down from his leadership post in the party. Because he stupidly oversaid something that needed to be said -- so stupid that the Repubs, and the great unwashed independents in this country, can crucify him for it. The peopel of Illinois can decide whether he gets to stay in the Senate, next time he's up.

B, to use words with which you ended an argument with me recently, on another subject, arw wong on this one. That makes us even, rhetorically. :-)

Meanwhile, politics is hardball -- and WE, meaning the Democratic Party -- should take care of Durbin, party leadershipwise, ourselves. There is no defending his rhetoric. Wadn't just the N-word. Twas the Pol Pot words and some others.

What an idiot. He was talking like he was at a lefty Dem fund-raiser when he was on the floor of the Senate. Out with him.

Trixie, the idea that this country has any "high ground" is a myth. Geo. Washington allowed an AWOL soldier in the Continental Army beheaded, and his head put on a tall stake as a warning to others. THAT's when I let go of the idea that the US had any claim to moral superiority.

Later, WE scalped because THEY scalped. We always sink toward -- but not all the way to, because it looks bad -- the level of our enemies in war time. War is hell.

See Kathleeen Parker's recent column on how women are being used -- and debasing THEMSELVES -- at Gitmo, if you want to read something to really piss you off about the place.

Torture, my ass. Stupid? Yes. Counterproductive in a 24/7 CNN-fed world? Yes. Torture. No.

And on top of it all, I've not seen a Durbin apology for saying what he said, which, in a way, does, in fact, give aid and comfort to our enemies. He said he was sorry if his words offended. That is NOT the same as saying he is sorry he offended!

As I've said previously, there is an answer to this: Take no more prisoners.

As for the ones already at Gitmo, here's an answer: Turn them the hell loose in Kabul, and give them a head start. Then shoot the bastards down like the dogs they are. The ones who get away will have proven they have Allah on their side.

PP, if yer out there, kiss my ass if you think I'm a damn "liberal" lefty on this war.

B, whether you likes it or not, I'm under the same tent as you, partywise.
 

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I can see your points, E.R.
And back here at home, I kind of think they should have done some of that "release on the streets" stuff with Terry Nichols. I do still have a seed of darkness within.
I just wish so much that things were right in the world -- for once, if not again.
 

Wait. The BBC, and the Guardian, the Red Cross, and Amnesty International, the Voice of America, and the Chicago Trib, and ABC news the New York Times are not reliable news sources any more? I cited precisely *one* source that could be said to be leftist--a leftist blog that was quoting 60 Minutes. The best newspapers in this country and others, and well-respected NGO's with a long history of upholding human rights have an "agenda to make the country look bad?"

I don't even know where to start with an assertion like that. God help us.
 

I can't see your points. I can *barely* see an argument that Durbin makes a poor Democratic leader for the reasons you're stating--mebbe so, but the fact is that any criticism of the Administration at all gets dismissed or twisted, just as this has been. Cheney was quoted not so long ago saying that those who are criticizing the administration don't agree with it, so there's no need to listen to them, and that just about sums up how it goes. Sure, "Nazis" is a stupid assertion--although contrary to the criticism of the Amnesty report, "gulag" isn't so bad, given the "imprisonment for life without access to counsel" thing--but it's about the only damn criticism that's gotten through the smokescreen of ennui and denial. So there's an equally valid argument to be made that he's a *great* leader, because he at least got himself heard. But you may have a point on that.

On the assertion that there's no torture at Guantanamo, you are mistaken. Read the links I posted. On the "let 'em all go and shoot 'em in the back" stuff, well, okay, you're not on the senate floor, but that's some seriously objectionable hyperbole itself (I hope it's hyperbole). Our basic argument (by which I mean "the administration's") is "they're guilty because we arrested them." Calling for the execution of POWs (and I don't give a rat's ass how the administration has legalistically "reclassified" them, that's exactly what they are) violates Geneva convention, it violates decent humanity, and I am sorry, but the crack about "Allah on their side" sounds suspiciously close to a declaration that being Muslim = being guilty.

I am sick to death of this excusing torture bullshit, excuse my language, but I am. Not least because the argument that "we descend to the enemy's level" works both ways. Talk about giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
 

I'll read some of the links you suggest. But hey, the NYT and Amnesty International ARE NOT UNBIASED SOURCES. Jesus, so to speak. The Red Cross? Eh, OK.

On the torture thing, i'll give. On Durbin, he should go from the party leadership. It would be an excellent tat for the the tit of Trent Lott, a run-of-the-mill brownshoe Repub -- who knew how to fricking compromise -- who was crucified and made to resign a party leadership post for just the same kind of gaffe. Pissed me off then. Pisses me off now.

A recap (swiped from some Web page, but I didn't pay attention to which one):

Lott lost his position as Senate Majority Leader after comments he made at a December 2002 party for retiring Senator Strom Thurmond were made public. Lott saluted his home state's support for Thurmond's 1948 run for the White House on a Dixiecrat platform staunchly supporting segregation and opposing anti-lynching legislation:

"I want to say this about my state. When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of him. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."

Stupid, stupid, stupid. And off went his head.

Screw Durbin, and shame on the Dems if they don't lop off his head!
 

What I mean by "I'll give" on torture is that I'll do some more reading up on what seems to be going down at Gitmo.
 

If the NYT has a bias, it's pretty much in favor of the status quo. Don't you remember their half-assed apology over having basically reported the administration's line in the run-up to the war, and having completely neglected any kind of investigative reporting into whether or not WMDs actually existed? And Amnesty is biased? In favor of human rights, I guess.

There's a difference between what Lott said, which was pretty clearly racist--particularly in line with his other associations--and what Durbin said, which was pretty clearly neither anti-American nor pro-Nazi.
 

Here's another story, remember this one? The US soldier who was so badly beaten during a training exercise--someone fucked up and the "interrogators" thought he was a real prisoner--that he now has epilepsy and was discharged?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/02/60II/main652953.shtml

What does he think would have happened if he had been a real detainee? "I think they would have busted him up," says Baker. "I've seen detainees come outta there with blood on 'em. …If there wasn't someone to say, 'I'm a U.S. soldier,' if you were speaking Arabic or Pashto or Urdu or some other language in the camp, we may never know what would have happened to that individual."

Now he's suing the Pentagon. Why? Because he still wants to serve.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/06/18/MNG18DAM6S1.DTL
 

I don't give a rat's heiney whether what Lott was racist or not. He was wrongly made to step down because of the kind of hypersensitivity that the looney left has fostered in this country. Durbin should step down, too. And the Left should consider it "friendly fire" in a war of rhetoric they started.

Anecdotes make good copy, but don't necessarily portend a trend. I'm going to read some of the links you sent today. But look, I am not going to lose much sleep over psychologically stressful ways of interrogation, and I for damn sure am not going to get bent out of shape if the detainees sometimes get physically mistreated. I used to help throw stupid, rowdy drunks out of a dancehall in Texas. The mouthy ones usually got a little "abuse" on the way out the door.

I've had it with the assumption that we're the bad guys here because of what seem to be isolated incidents, or clusters of bad eggs. I'll read the links. They better have evidence of wholesale abandonment of the idea of right and wrong on our part, and they better indicate lines, not points, and something more than pockets of, um, mistreaters, as the president might put it.

One other thing: Tell me what is an unreasonable way to treat those who lend their own brand of "moral support" to the attack on the WTC? I will NEVER forgive that. EVER. I blame those sons-of-bitches, and the ones who cheer it, for ALL of this.
 

Pecheur,

Thanks for the language lesson. :-)

And on a lighter note: Dwight Yoakum is fixing to be on Imus. He has a new album, which he produced hisself, which I intend to procure today, along with Toby Keith'e new one. It might just be a pretty good day.
 

First, a definition for torture:

1: extreme mental distress [syn: anguish, torment]
2: unbearable physical pain [syn: torment]

I'll concede a point: The second definition is arguably inhumane, whether used to punish or in an attempt to extract information. The first definition, ah, no, not inhumane. Meaner'n shit maybe. Not inhumane.

And here, I should concede this, too: If there is torture, first definition, at Gitmo, so what? If there is torture, second definition, it should stop.

You see what you want to see in these links, I'll bet. I just looked at the first one (http://lists.meer.net/pipermail/icujp-news/2004-November/000034.html). You see the horrors of torture. I see the US government and the general in charge disputing some, but not all of the Red Cross report. The story suggests that the US responded to the report. The fact that they let the Red Cross in the place in the first place suggests something way less than a effing "gulag."

More anon.
 

This one is about mishandling the Koran: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0505190306may19,1,278199.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

SO WHAT? That ain't torture, by eithger definition. If it makes 'em uncomfortable, even anguished, I just don't care. The fact they allow the Koran in the joint in the first place suggests an incredible level of respect for a religion that doesn't deserve it, considering. I say it's misplaced.
 

This one -- http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/vp01.cfm?outfit=pmt&folder=891&paper=2357 -- is a little disturbing. Stripped and shackeled low to the floor? Stop it. Systemic? Not enough information for me to draw a conclusion. The "sexual" stuff used against "devout" Muslims? Probably ought to stop that, too, because it degrades the women doing it; I could not care less about the feelings of "devout" Muslims who devotion is defined by hatred for the US and the West in general.
 

This one is a repeat of the first one: http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200412/s1255202.htm

Another repeat: http://www.voanews.com/english/2004-11-30-voa74.cfm

This one -- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3533804.stm -- is about three Brits who were held, then released, who wrote a report detailing some things that crossed the line, and some other things that did not. You have to consider the source. The story doesn't indicate whether they were in the wrong place at the wrong time when they were captured, or whether they were released because they were Brits, in some kind of political deal between the US and UK.
 

This one is about four guys were apparently WERE in the wrong place at the wrong time: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4163911.stm

Four, or is it seven, out of 550 = 1.2 percent.
 

This one will require some study, which, frankly, I don't have time for today. There are exceedingly complex issues here involving history, separation of powers, checks and balances, the war-making power, definitions and semantics. I will concede this: Bush does seem to have taken the Andrew Jackson stance regarding the court decision(s) on some of this: Jackson is reported to have said, after SCOTUS ruled that the Cherokees had rights to possess their territory even though Georgia wanted it, something like, "Mr. Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it."

http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR510632005
 

You said, "Our basic argument (by which I mean "the administration's") is "they're guilty because we arrested them."
No, that isn't the argument. They are there because they were captured in COMBAT in the act of trying to KILL us! By the way, amnesty international's chief contributed 100% of his campaign donations to Kerry during the elction. I find that strange since according to Kerry himself, Kerry was guilty of atrocities in Vietnam. But maybe he doesn't have a political agenda.
 

This one complains that some held at Gitmo are minors: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/13/politics/13gitmo.html?ex=1276315200&en=9dd1b075e5c81c00&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

The age of majority is arbitrary, or at least, so subject to different cultures, histories and societies as to be meaningless in this context.
 

If they were captured in combat, that makes them POWs.

Look, there is evidence of mistreatment. If your response to every piece of evidence is, "well, that's just one person" (or four people, or however many), then no, neither I nor anyone else is going to be able to "prove" that every single prisoner is mistreated. If your contention is "those were just four people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time and everyone else is guilty," then ditto. You're setting up a logical impossibility: only the people who manage to get out, or whose testimony gets leaked, will be able to testify; and their testimony will be dismissed as exceptional, rather than typical.

As to psychological torture: my husband's gone through training in withstanding torture. In point of fact, psychological torture is in many ways more effective. Here's an example, off the top of my head, tailored to what I know of your own psychology (as any good torturer would): let's say I had your children beaten in front of you. Or your wife raped. Hey, I'm not hurting you. You're not being tortured. Right? Bullshit. That's torture. It is torture to keep human beings in solitary confinement indefinitely. It is torture to deprive them of sleep.

Your entire rhetoric of "bad guys" and "good guys" and "them" and "us" is a big part of the problem. It isn't that simple. Not all of "them" are against "us" (but the more we torture people, the more likely that is to be--and who can blame them? You'd do exactly the damn same thing if I tortured you, I know you would). It isn't a question of "us being the bad guys." It's a question of us adhering to international law. It's a question of good people can do really bad things. And excusing that, or explaining that away, or shrugging it off is wholly unacceptable. And believing that it is unacceptable is the *definition* of the "good guys."
 

Sorry, I should have added, re. psychological torture:

It is also torture to make a person helpless, then violate things that he holds very very dear. Sure, to me, pissing on the bible, whatever. I don't care, piss away. But then, I'm not a devout Christian, and I can certainly understand that to devout Muslims, desecrating the Koran would constitute a kind of torture--I might feel the same way if, say, someone mutilated and burned original Picassos, say. Violating people's deeply internalized ideas of dirt and sexuality can also constitute torture: no, I wouldn't get all hung up on menstrual blood, but I might get hung up on, say, having cockroaches crawl all over me (it wouldn't really "hurt" me), or being stripped naked and put on display in front of a bunch of people I'm terrified of. Again, that wouldn't actually be physically painful, but I can't believe you'd stand around and say, "well, they caught you fighting in a war against 'em, I guess you deserved it" if something like that happened to a woman POW.
 

I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO THINK, EXACTLY. But by God it is "us" versus "our enemies." The US should've never taken them in the first place.

It's just hard for me to give a damn. All I see is people flapping their f------ arms, trying to fly, after they've jumped from the 110th floor of the WTC. That's ALL I can see. THAT's inhumane.
 

Yes, the WTC was horrible. No one's really arguing that. And it's only human to want someone to pay. But random vengeance on people, the vast majority of whom certainly had nothing to do with it, is really the same kind of thinking that leads to the terrorism we're supposedly trying to combat, no?
 

There is no valid thinking, policy or anything that I accept as "leading" to the attack. I abhor the notion that it was deserved, that it was to be expected, or that the US "had it coming."

I don't believe that the roundupo at Gitmo was "random."

I am among those who assume the administration is telling the truth, as it sees it, until shown otherwise. And perhaps that is what's going on now. I'm all ears -- for critics accusations and for the administration's explanations.

What else can I do? Assume that it's an outlaw administration? I just reject that. These issues are not black-and-white.
 

I'm not saying it was deserved; I'm saying that events don't happen out of nowhere. Somehow there is a series of actions, among which presumably is included the idea that objecting to what some people have done (e.g., the presence of soldiers in Saudia Arabia) justifies attacking/punishing/hurting other people who one associates with "them" (e.g., civilians in NYC). I'm not defending the logic; merely acknowledging that events have causes.

I get the desire to believe that the administration is telling the truth as it sees it. But this administration has been shown to be so dishonest about everything involved with the series of wars we've conducted in the middle east, and there has been so much evidence of widespread torture (read Seymour Hersh's book, if you will; also this latest from today's NYT) that at this point it's willful blindness to believe that torture isn't occuring. It's been verified. There are accounts by inmates, interrogators, and third-party observers like the Red Cross. All that's happening now is the administration is trying to downplay it as a "few isolated incidents"--even they aren't pretending nothing happened any more, because they can't. And as active citizens of a democracy, we have a responsibility to hold our government accountable.
 

The Q'uran, the very book that America supplies to the detainees in Gitmo, instructs it's followers to "convert the infidels" and if the infidels cannot be converted, to "purify them". The word "purify" in this case means to KILL them!
Another document recently reported discovered in Iraq,(in a backpack left behind by fleeing insurgents)is a training manual for Al-Quaida. This manual outlines the procedures to follow in the event the Al-Quaida soldier is captured and detained. It instructs him to accuse his captors of abuse, in much the same way that our domestic prisons are full of innocent people. And if you don't believe they are innocent, just ask them. They'll tell you.
 

My point in the above comment is, who do you choose to believe? The prisoner, who have nothing to lose by accusing his captors of abuse and plenty to win, or our own soldiers? Which is more likely to be lying?
Also, you mentioned the Geneva Convention. These detainees are enemy conbatants, but members of any one country's armed services, therefore, they are not entitled to any rights under the terms of the Geneva Convention.
Even so, they are treated with respect and courtesy, in spite of what some may consider an over-zealousness in our efforts to extract vital information in regard to the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden, or the plans for another attack.
 

Oh for god's sake. There ARE "our own soldiers" who say we are abusing prisoners. And *obviously* the administration has a alot to gain by saying "we're doing nothing wrong."

But if your answer is to refuse to accept evidence because "they" are liars, and "we" obviously never lie, then there's no arguing with you.

And the Koran is subject to interpretation just as the Bible is. You say "purify" means kill, and I'm sure so do a lot of Islamic fundamenatlists. But that is an INTERPRETATION. It is not evidence of anything other than the pre-existing beliefs of whoever is interpreting it.
 

And to what B. said, I'll just add "Yup."

And I will withdraw, now, because this has reached the point of causing me great frustration and distress. Both sides have had their say and no one is going to change positions. But maybe we'll all continue thinking about it.
 

I didn't say we don't lie. I said who is more likely to lie? If you say we are, than all i can say, is Does your burka fit too tight? sometimes one can defend one's position so vigourously, that it begins to border on the absurd, even to the point of defying logic.
 

And I think your last statement just proved your point, Mark.