The amount of spin in 2:53 of video is astounding.

"Hurting America First" - Didn't it hurt America to start using torture in the first place? One of the key states to fight against the policies of Nazi Germany, the Stasi, the KGB and Khmer Rouge. One of the main founders and signatories of the Geneva convention?

"Showing military men and women in bad light" - Torture policy was top down not bottom up, we are to hold those who put these policies forward not those made to carry them out as orders. John Yoo, David Addington, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney. It was not a few bad apples.

"Voyeurism" - Was it voyeurism to cite 9/11 in almost every campaign speech during the elections? Was it voyeurism to acknowledge the victims of the holocaust? More diversionary spin. Such steps would assure these events will never occur again. One must see the mistakes of before to learn from them lest we repeat this again.

"Acts that have ended" - The acts were supposed to have ended with the Abu Ghraib scandal, but they didn't. It was a policy that was implemented and carried out before and after the scandal broke and would have kept going had the information not been leaked out.

"Hurting our National defense/Reason for suicide bombers" - The reasons for suicide bombing and attacks on America are plentiful for those who choose to do so. The way the statement is framed doesn't acknowledge that actually carrying out torture has been a great boon to creating more terrorists, or that its continual oppression and denial only furthers the case that America has a hypocritical stance. "It's bad when others do it, but its okay for us to do it."

"Replayed in the Arab world" - This is a lie. I live in the Arab world, we have enough of our own issues, the accusations of torture coming out were not surprising as the Arabs already know that Americans do not really care about the plight of the Arab people given the long history of political meddling in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Palestine, Iraq and Iran.

"Hurt the military" - Again an example of attacking the grunts instead of attacking those who created and put this forward these policies.

"Reveal intelligence gather techniques" - There has not been a single document published by the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, the US military nor any other intelligence gathering component of the US government that has showed unequivocally that torture had prevented attacks and or has made America safer in anyway. What it has do is cost America the moral standing, the support of the international world and created strained relations across the world providing fuel for terrorist organizations to attack the US more then ever.

From al Arabiya, after Abu Ghraib:

"It's important for people to understand that in a democracy, there will be a full investigation. In other words, we want to know the truth. In our country, when there's an allegation of abuse ... there will be a full investigation, and justice will be delivered. ... It's very important for people and your listeners to understand that in our country, when an issue is brought to our attention on this magnitude, we act. And we act in a way in which leaders are willing to discuss it with the media. ... In other words, people want to know the truth. That stands in contrast to dictatorships. A dictator wouldn't be answering questions about this. A dictator wouldn't be saying that the system will be investigated and the world will see the results of the investigation." - Bush Al Arabiya interview.

"But we are not asked to judge the President's character flaws. We are asked to judge whether the President, who swore an oath to faithfully execute his office, deliberately subverted--for whatever purpose--the rule of law," - John McCain arguing for the impeachment of Bill Clinton for perjury in a civil suit, February 1999.

"Anyone who knows what waterboarding is could not be unsure. It is a horrible torture technique used by Pol Pot," - John McCain, October 2007.

"We've got to move on," - John McCain, April 26, 2009, reacting to incontrovertible proof that George W. Bush ordered the waterboarding of a prisoner 183 times, as well as broader treatment that the Red Cross has called "unequivocally torture."

As I said in China this spring, there is no place for abuse in what must be considered the family of man. There is no place for torture and arbitrary detention. There is no place for forced confessions. There is no place for intolerance of dissent. While we walked through the Rotunda. I explained to President Jiang how the roots of American rule of law go back more than 700 years, to the signing of the Magna Carta. The foundation of American values, therefore, is not a passing priority or a temporary trend. - Newt Gengrich http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-28404541.html

John Lopresti noted that it might be helpful to have a timeline of all the torture documents released in the last several weeks. And you know I can't resist requests for timelines. So here goes:

April 6: NYRB posts the Red Cross report on high value detainees

April 9: CIA Director Leon Panetta bans contractors from conducting interrogations

April 16: Obama statement on memo release, torture memos released:

* August 1, 2002: Memo from Jay Bybee, Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA
* May 10, 2005: Memo from Steven Bradbury, Acting Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA ["Techniques"]
* May 10, 2005: Memo from Steven Bradbury, Acting Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA ["Combined"]
* May 30, 2005: Memo from Steven Bradbury, Acting Assistant Attorney General, OLC, to John A. Rizzo, General Counsel CIA

April 21: Senate Armed Services Committee releases declassified Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in US Custody

April 22: Senate Intelligence Committee releases declassified Narrative Describing the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel's Opinions on the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program (Jello Jay's statement on the release)

April 23: Ali Soufan, FBI interrogator, publishes NYT op-ed describing early interrogation of Abu Zubaydah

April 23: DOJ announces it will release a number of photos showing detainee abuse that had previously been FOIAed, along with thousands more

April 24: Greg Sargent gets a copy of Cheney's request for two documents to make his "efficacy" case

April 24: In ACLU FOIA case, Judge Hellerstein orders a more expansive response on torture tape documents from CIA

April 24: WaPo releases JPRA memo--which had been circulated among the torture architects--using the word "torture" and warning that torture will beget false information

WP and QM can sqwak all they want about how awesome it is to torture (brown) people. But they are in the very very slim minority.

Sure, there are a few dumbfucks in congress and in the punditocracy who just love torturing people. But they are just a few. They are the ones who think of Dick Cheney as heroic, and mentally masturbate over the worst images out of Abu Ghraib.

Remember the videos of those Russian kids who were torturing animals and worked their way up to humans? This is who QM and WPP look up to.


No need to debate the in-human and witless about something like this.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Katrina: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8az4CfEDpw
Prison abuse: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1875191
Economic downturn: http://ca.news.finance.yah
oo.com/s/01122008/2/biz-finance-bush-apologizes-financial-crisis-says-economy-recover.html
To a certain extent even the Iraq War: http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Politics/story?id=6354012&page=1


I'm going to respond a little out of order.

On the economic collapse (downturn?!), you'll note that what he said was, "I'm sorry it's happening...." That's like saying, "I'm sorry your dog died." Of course he's sorry, but that is not the same as taking responsibility or apologizing.

I saw neither an apology nor any acceptance of responsibility for the failures in intelligence gathering about Iraq and WMDs (in the link you provide or anywhere else). In particular, much of the intelligence that was fed to the public and Congress before the war was cherry picked and outright manipulated from within the White House. AFAIK, he's never even acknowledged this, much less taken responsibility for it.

The utter incompetence of the federal (and local) response to the devastation in New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast after Katrina and Rita makes me almost too angry to respond. Suffice it to say that to this day, people are still fighting to get help that was promised. Completely insincere, and as such, not a real apology. (Even the words he uses in that clip are kind of weasely.)

On the prison abuse at Abu Ghraib. I might actually grant you this one. And I only asked for one verifiable quote. I was unaware that he had ever actually apologized to the people of Iraq, or specifically to the people that were abused and their families.
But again, it's somewhat insincere, because the very same practices were continued at Guantanamo for years after that. Another analogy - it's like saying to your neighbor, "I'm sorry my son beat up your son at school today," and then raping your other neighbor's wife later that night.

I can think of only one time when Bush ever came close to an admitting he was wrong and/or apologizing - the spy plane incident in China. Initially, he whipped out his dick for a pissing contest, risking an escalation of tensions to an unthinkable outcome. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed (Rice and Powell), and we got our people and plane back. But generally speaking, despite any expressions of remorse, Bush never publicly admitted when he was wrong. And he essentially never changed his policies, no matter how wrong they were shown to be.

Don't get me wrong - I won't apologize for Obama. The appointment of Geitner to Treasury and Lynn to Defense are inexcusable. That Killefer and Daschle have been forced to step aside, though, shows a willingness to admit when he's wrong. That gives me some hope that when he does make more serious mistakes in the future (which he surely will), he will be willing to change direction if it's warranted. And if I read them right, I think that's the basic sentiment of many of the preceding comments.

>> ^joedirt:
By that logic, the Israelis deserve what they get for pissing off a whole bunch of nothing-to-lose heathens. And the US deserves generations of suicide attacks from all the orphaned Iraqis and Afghans.


This may be a very apt description. NOBODY is looking at the big picture here. Everybody thinks that if they can just beat the enemy into submission then that will be the end of it. But it NEVER ENDS. As long as you use violence, the problem will just continue to compound. You will get retribution, blowback, terrorism... people will not forget that some other nation tried to grind them under their heel.

Hamas, or whoever is really firing those rockets from schools, WANTS the Israelis to blow up schools and hospitals. And Israel is falling for it.

America lost its moral high ground with Gitmo and Abu Ghraib. That will not come back for a long, long time. Now Israel is doing the same in Gaza. Their international support, what little they had left, will be gone. That's what Hamas wants. The Palestinians are losing this battle, but winning the war.

I dunno - could be real. There are apparently at least 200 confirmed neo-nazis in the military (http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/nazis-military-im-so-proud-my-skills), so it's possible one ended up at Abu Ghraib.

If it's not real, who the FUCK makes something like this for fun?

Not to mention that the GOP has put this country through eight years of hell.

9/11, blocking the investigation into 9/11, two trumped up wars, lying about WMDs, joking about WMDs not being under his desk, saying they're not spying on us when they're spying on us, the torture and misconduct at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay - which was approved from the White House - rigging unemployment and GDP numbers to make themselves look better, and now the bottom falling out from under Wall Street along with all of our 401(k) and retirement packages.

It's criminal that anybody would even consider supporting the Republicans after all that they've done to us.

I spent some time with Phil on the day that the Abu Ghraib scandal broke nationally. He was shocked, as all of us were, but not surprised and was amazed about how pertinent the research he had done almost 30 years previously had become with regards to what was happening on a global scale. It was an inspiration to chat with him that night and brought home the real value of hard-hitting psychological research, like the study that he's doing now.

I couldn't even make it past the second "characteristic."

Disdain for human rights? Surely you could have found a better example than the fiasco at Abu Ghraib. Everyone involved in that, both directly and indirectly, were court-martial'd and got a DD.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Philip Zimbardo, experiment, bad, good, Abu Ghraib, torture' to 'Philip Zimbardo, experiment, bad, good, Abu Ghraib, torture, TED talks' - edited by calvados

>> ^quantumushroom:
Like all Big Government liberals, Barry O is against citizens owning firearms.

No he isn't. He's very much like me, a gun totin' liberal. As he said in his DNC speech, we can make sure hunters keep their guns, but inner-city gangsters don't have uzi's. There's a balance there, somewhere, but there's a lot more of us hardcore libs who find the 2nd amendment untouchable. Apparently you haven't listened to his view on this issue.

"Hunting only, eh?" Taking guns from "inner-city gang members". Absolute horseshit. No president can do it, and all the 50,000 gun laws we have now do is tie down the lawful citizen. Obama is lying about his "love" of guns. He was likely as upset as the rest of the left (minus you) about the latest Supreme Court ruling that the 2nd Amendment is indeed, an individual right to bear arms.

Obama believes in an all-powerful centrist government. There's nothing government can't fix, if only they have the money...

No he doesn't. He doesn't believe in a broken and bloated gov't that does nothing for us. He believes in individual responsibilities, as well as gov't help for those who can't help themselves, and for infrastructure etc projects.

Obama wants to add billions of dollars in new and expanded programs to fight "the bloat". Does that make sense? I believe most liberals are sincere, but if you'll notice, the pool of people "who can't help themselves" seems to be expanding every day. Now we're "helping" you quit smoking, and quit eating fatty foods, see? We're your new nanny!

Also, should Obama win, I won't fault only him on government growth, the reality is the scumbag bureaucrats run Washington and they can easily outlast any and all 8-year terms.

He uses accusations of "racism" whenever he loses an argument.

Now that's just 100% bullshit. And when people like Sarah Palin call him "Sambo", to deny there's any racist attacks against him, is ridiculous.

The "sambo" charge was false.

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/09/obama-supporters-are-behind-palin-sambo.html

My answer to Obama's racist poor-me victim act will occur on election day. If he loses, there will be plenty of recrimination from the drive-by media about what an evil racist country America is, as if that's the only reason he lost. If he wins, they won't shut up about how wonderful it is to have a Black president, blah blah blah.

He uses class warfare.

There IS class warfare in this country. What, are you fucking insane? What do you think just happened this week? The gov't colluded with the greediest fucks on this planet to take our money, trillions of dollars of it, to pay for their mistakes.

I agree, and I agree it was wrong for these pricks to subsidize failure. But that's government for ya. If government were smaller, with limited funds, it couldn't get away with this. But historically the Left has been pushing hardest for more and more Big Government. The beast slipped its leash long ago, I'm afraid. But all these bailout don't come close to the 3 trillion wasted on the "War on Poverty".

Obama is nearly a lifelong member of a "church" that promotes Black Liberation Theology.

I hate all religions. I don't see where his bullshit is any more "neo-marxist" than any other dumbass religious believer.

Fair enough. Either Obama is lying about his faith to upset religion-haters or he sees it as a valuable tool for activism.

But its real mission is to radicalize American youth and use them to bring about "social change" through threats, pressure, tension and confrontation

You are absolutely nuts. Really, way way off the deep-end here, my friend.

Well, time will tell if he funds this crap, or gets the chance. I see the way American government-schools have rewritten or eliminated the teaching of history. Nothing surprises me anymore. The Democrats have sold their souls to the kook-left fringe, more so than any religious "control" the right.

Facts and logic are out the window, Obamites are electrified by these vague messages of "hope" and "change" or still part of the "Anybody but Bush" mindset.

Wow, you should try insulting more people's intelligence. Shoving everyone into this "Obamites" category shows just how little grasp you have on this election and these candidates.

It's really a compliment. It takes intelligence to have your imagination captured. I freely admit Barry is an aspiring speaker, and say also, he has not been given a thorough background check nor his lacking credentials serious consideration. It really is a case of rockstar-itis.

Still more sifters are from countries that are already socialist, so there's no conflict of interest there.

I take it you've never been outside the US then. I've traveled 1/2 of my life, lived overseas for years on end, in these "socialist" countries you know nothing about. If you think Europe is what socialism looks like, you need to go back to school.

Well, as the pundits love pointing out, the USA isn't as "sophisticated" as Europe, and the "rest of the world", with all its tinpot dictators and sheiks and corrupt regimes and double-digit unemployment welfare states supposedly despises the USA. The wisest here don't want to be anything like Europeans or anyone else.


And lastly, there are the deluded peaceniks who FEEL that the USA is morally no greater than Red China, and that despots can be 'reasoned with' if only we bring them a bouquet of their favorite flowers.

Wow, that sure is a pretty straw-man you built yourself.

These peaceniks are real enough. They've always been with us and they've always been wrong. Only war stops tyrants.

But tell me, oh wise one. When was the last time you saw one of these evil socialist European nations torture someone? When was the last time a European nation used a pack of lies to sell its citizens an illegal war, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people? When was the last time that Abu-Ghraib happened under France's watch? When was the last time any EU country called the Geneva Conventions "cute"? When was the last time any EU country thought that following international laws, and their own military code of conduct, just didn't count anymore?

There's no point trying to reason with anyone who thinks a war can be "legal" or "illegal". Wars are about survival, nothing else. A saddam-free Iraq increases America's chance for survival. A taliban-free Afghanistan increases America's chance for survival. All the other good or evil to follow is secondary.


Where I differ from others on the matter of war is I believe America is the greatest country on earth, and its only moral force. We have the RIGHT and the duty to do whatever it takes. Without the USA, the world is fucked. Europe withers before the Crescent, China is a communist nightmare, Russia is sliding backwards towards the same, the Middle East is perhaps forever a hellish hail of traded bullets. And whether Ron fucking Paul likes it or not, America has been cast in the role of world's policeman.

Wow. You seem like a very, very scared person.

I am more than worried about electing a President that hates America, who has the defense doctrine of Bill Clinton and the economic knowledge of Jimmy Carter. Should he win, we will weather four years of his ridiculousness while Congress via the people, won't support him.

>> ^quantumushroom:
Like all Big Government liberals, Barry O is against citizens owning firearms.

No he isn't. He's very much like me, a gun totin' liberal. As he said in his DNC speech, we can make sure hunters keep their guns, but inner-city gangsters don't have uzi's. There's a balance there, somewhere, but there's a lot more of us hardcore libs who find the 2nd amendment untouchable. Apparently you haven't listened to his view on this issue.


Obama believes in an all-powerful centrist government. There's nothing government can't fix, if only they have the money...

No he doesn't. He doesn't believe in a broken and bloated gov't that does nothing for us. He believes in individual responsibilities, as well as gov't help for those who can't help themselves, and for infrastructure etc projects.


He uses accusations of "racism" whenever he loses an argument

Now that's just 100% bullshit. And when people like Sarah Palin call him "Sambo", to deny there's any racist attacks against him, is ridiculous.


He uses class warfare.

There IS class warfare in this country. What, are you fucking insane? What do you think just happened this week? The gov't colluded with the greediest fucks on this planet to take our money, trillions of dollars of it, to pay for their mistakes.


Obama is nearly a lifelong member of a "church" that promotes Black Liberation Theology.

I hate all religions. I don't see where his bullshit is any more "neo-marxist" than any other dumbass religious believer.


But its real mission is to radicalize American youth and use them to bring about "social change" through threats, pressure, tension and confrontation

You are absolutely nuts. Really, way way off the deep-end here, my friend.



Facts and logic are out the window, Obamites are electrified by these vague messages of "hope" and "change" or still part of the "Anybody but Bush" mindset.

Wow, you should try insulting more people's intelligence. Shoving everyone into this "Obamites" category shows just how little grasp you have on this election and these candidates.



Still more sifters are from countries that are already socialist, so there's no conflict of interest there.

I take it you've never been outside the US then. I've traveled 1/2 of my life, lived overseas for years on end, in these "socialist" countries you know nothing about. If you think Europe is what socialism looks like, you need to go back to school.



And lastly, there are the deluded peaceniks who FEEL that the USA is morally no greater than Red China, and that despots can be 'reasoned with' if only we bring them a bouquet of their favorite flowers.


Wow, that sure is a pretty straw-man you built yourself.

But tell me, oh wise one. When was the last time you saw one of these evil socialist European nations torture someone? When was the last time a European nation used a pack of lies to sell its citizens an illegal war, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people? When was the last time that Abu-Ghraib happened under France's watch? When was the last time any EU country called the Geneva Conventions "cute"? When was the last time any EU country thought that following international laws, and their own military code of conduct, just didn't count anymore?


Wow. You seem like a very, very scared person.

Vaccine-Gate: Corporate profit driven legislation. Require vaccinations at $165 a pop. More profits for the friend/company supplying it.

Passport-Gate: McCarthyist snooping in citizen's files, caught, and deflected to 'one bad seed'. Not unlike Abu Ghraib... the scapegoats fall while the government walks away untouched.

Iraq-Gate: Proof the US doesn't want the war to end. They don't want peace. As I always say.. the US' tactic is to keep the middle east unstable and at war. A divided and unstable middle east is FAR less of a threat than a united middle east. Give them some space, and they WILL unite against the US. Especially after all the $hit the Bush administration has pulled over there.

The Bush administration sent thousands of troops to their deaths (and horrible disfigurements) for oil.

They also approved of waterboarding and Abu Ghraib torture policies. After all, who really thinks that Charles Graner and Lyndie England just thought up the ideas that constitute those horrific pictures?

They allowed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to be run by a horse-show judge, then when disaster hit, they said "Brownie" was doing a "heckuva job." Then they sent the survivors to formaldehyde-laced trailer homes.

They outed a CIA agent because her husband said their purported cause for war was ill-founded. And when someone was finally brought to justice for it, Bush commuted his sentence. And who knows if he'll give a last-day pardon.

They are the first administration to openly start a war of aggression against a sovereign nation, then give every excuse in the world to explain that it wasn't about oil, which ended up being what it was about.

ETC, fucking ETC.

And people still think the idea of martial law is tinfoil-hat conspiracy? Maybe, but the idea is not unfounded.

1. If it is an abandoned or confiscated vehicle, do you think it looks good to the locals to crush it?
2. Do you really think if a conquering army came into your neighborhood and started crushing vehicles that their actions would be met with cheers? Really? If you cheered for it, I'd have to wonder who's side you're on.
If they want to remove abandoned vehicles, fine. Shit, that's what we do here in America with abandoned vehicles. But you know what? The police have them towed away, NOT crushed.
3. Yes, those soldiers are behaving unprofessionally, and you know how I know that? Because the whole world can see this video of them laughing and giggling while they drive over the vehicle AND then back over it for good measure. Not as bad as when that Marine threw a puppy off a cliff, but it still tarnishes the reputation of American armed forces. I can NOT imagine the Iraqi locals positively responding to giggling soldiers crushing a vehicle. Most people in the world also find this to be in bad taste, and many Americans do too. And for every act like this, how many Iraqis say "Fuck it, I'm joining the insurgency." We don't need to create even more enemies over there.

I am NOT anti-military. I served in the military myself. However I AM anti-military-idiocy, which this is to me. The response to the pictures from Abu Ghraib should have sent a clear signal to all the men and women in uniform that they have to behave professionally, ESPECIALLY if you're going to take fucking pictures or videos of your actions. The action depicted in this video is not as bad as Abu Ghraib, but it certainly turns the world against us. And that is very unprofessional.