According to Joan Walsh. The left wasn't allowed to have another one way "conversation" on an agenda item cuz of that monster Dick Cheney, so they're throwing a fit.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s time is about up, in many senses. For a Republican Party trying to look forward, he shouldn’t be a go-to voice for the media on national security policy. His sneering attacks on President Obama aren’t news anymore. The man who famously said, “It’s my new heart, not someone else’s old heart,” about the donor to his taxpayer-funded heart transplant should have lost the power to shock us by now. Unless he has a sudden attack of conscience, and apologizes for his career, he has nothing to say worth hearing.
Except on the Senate Intelligence Committee’s torture report. There’s been some anger on the left that Cheney took his seat yet again on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, but I think he belonged there, one last time. Let the American people hear from the man who claims that interrogation methods we prosecuted after World War II, as well as others even more depraved, aren’t actually torture. It wasn't an official report. It was a democratic political report.
Cheney is such a monster that he couldn’t even keep himself from defending “rectal feeding.” While he acknowledged that it “was not one of the techniques that was approved,” he sanctioned it nonetheless. “I believe it was done for medical reasons. … It wasn’t torture in terms of it wasn’t part of the program.”
That would seem to imply that anything that was “part of the program” was torture, which of course Cheney denies.
Ironically, earlier on Fox News Cheney said, “I don’t know anything about” rectal feeding or rectal rehydration (he may well have been lying). But by the time he got to “MTP,” he wasn’t willing to let any torture method go undefended. And even host Chuck Todd noting that “the medical community has said there is no medical reason to do this” didn’t shame him. That's it! F. Chuck Todd, a commie, didn't shame Cheney. He's in on it, Joan!
Todd asked Cheney some tough questions about U.S. prosecution of Japanese officials who waterboarded Americans, about the fact that at least a quarter of the detainees were innocent and, of course, about rectal feeding. Unfortunately, Cheney either dodged or lied. More goofiness at the link...
#1
Attacks under Bush in the US after 9/11 = Zero.
Attacks under Obama = at least FIVE.
Posted by: Whaimp Oppressor of the Nebraskans3750 ||
12/17/2014 0:13 Comments ||
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#2
The liberals are still blindly following the notion that the Islamic terrorists are attacking us because they don't like us.
Not torturing interrogating prisoners, leaving the borders open, saying nice things to them, bowing and scraping at negotiations, and accepting mindless violence.
#4
As a person that had been shot at when a baby and ho despite my age would have probably faced horrible death had I been caught alive by that terrorist movement that routinely mudered, sadistically murdered whole villages I already told what I thgought about torture the guy is proven guilty and making him speak would save lives.
As I said: envision yourself telling to a father "Your daughter has been raped and cut to pieces, her baby impaed. I could have prevented it but I didn't want to dirty my precious little hands".
Let's remins it is the terrorists not us who chooseed to up the stakes of evil.
#5
It’s the same mentality that leads to police shooting unarmed black men in the name of public safety.
Walsh may be a twit but you have to give her credit for consistency. Regardless of the subject at hand she never misses an opportunity to imply all republicans are racists.
#8
It's not important that they love us, only that they fear us.
Hey, when ISIS and al Qaeda sign the Geneva Convention we can abide by it ourselves. Until then we should treat them like the barbarians they are. Me, I wanted bin Laden's head on a pike at Ground Zero but Obama wouldn't even let us see the pictures out of concern for Muslim "sensibilities". Screw that. And if I did any rectal feeding with KSM I would have made sure to add plenty of hot sauce. I would have filmed the event and put it on YouTube, especially the part where he ratted out his fellow cockroaches because he couldn't take any more pain.
[Warriorlodge.com] What follows is an account from a French ISAF soldier that was stationed with American Warfighters in Afghanistan sometime in the past 4 years. This was copied and translated from an editorial French newspaper.
A NOS FRERES D’ARMES AMERICAINS
"We have shared our daily life with two US units for quite a while - they are the first and fourth companies of a prestigious infantry battalion whose name I will withhold for the sake of military secrecy. To the common man it is a unit just like any other. But we live with them and got to know them, and we henceforth know that we have the honor to live with one of the most renowned units of the US Army - one that the movies brought to the public as series showing "ordinary soldiers thrust into extraordinary events". Who are they, those soldiers from abroad, how is their daily life, and what support do they bring to the men of our OMLT every day? Few of them belong to the Easy Company, the one the TV series focuses on. This one nowadays is named Echo Company, and it has become the support company.
Heartwarming. Normally we give just a taste, but it would be a tragedy to lose the rest to link rot in time, so I made an executive decision.
#1
Now, now, the dangerous storm is rolling
Which treacherous kings confederate raise!
The dogs of war, let loose, are howling,
And lo! our fields and cities blaze!
While the financial media is riveted with the spectacle of the ruble meltdown and the Russian government rate hike to 17%, and the investor rush out of all things emerging markets, another drama is playing out in Ukraine. If you’ve been following this drama, the Ukraine economy is substantially intertwined with Russia’s, and Russia was already subsidizing it by giving it a break on gas prices. When things got ugly, Russia revoked the subsidy, demanded repayment of outstanding gas debts, and cut off gas shipments. This made for an ugly situation, since 70% of gas to Europe goes through pipelines that transit Ukraine meaning Ukraine could simply steal European-bound gas if they got desperate, creating a conflict with one of their new patrons. Moreover, it raised the specter that any rescue of Ukraine would wind up routing funds to Gazrpom to pay off the gas bill, another outcome unappealing to a West determined to punish Russia every way it could (the dispute over the outstanding debt is being arbitrated, with a decision due next summer, which also allows Europe to wash its hands of money going to Gazprom).
This detailed account of the wrangling over what to do about supporting the basket case of Ukraine makes a couple of issues very clear: one, the amount of funding needed is much larger than the officials want to admit to, and two, the approaches under discussion are at best stopgaps. A default and restructuring look inevitable.
#1
Always thought the USSR divested of the Ukraine and Belarus because of red ink associated with both Chernobyl costs ($, political, health and social) and the state of pollution and industrial decay in those regions.
[DAWN] As condemnations from politicians began to roll out (like paper does from a photocopying machine), one immediately felt that in spite of such automated and cyclostyled exhibitions of grief that usually emerge in times of a national tragedy in Pakistain, the country's most recent collision with terror was drawing a somewhat different reaction. It's always a different reaction with every new atrocity--approximately every ten days.
This time, outrage from the usual quarters (that are unfortunately mocked for being overtly 'sensationalist') was not quite coupled by the reptilian waffle and reactionary drivel that often emerges alongside the ire. Give it time.
On social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, one actually felt a profound sense of shock even in some of the most animated sections, which, on normal days take the lead in immediately spinning up theories and narratives that obfuscate a tragedy ‐ any tragedy, even including the slaughter of men and women by the self-claimed warriors of faith. They trade ideas on how to be atrocious. Boko Haram did something similar not thirty days ago.
But this sense of shock in such people was largely exhibited by a long, awkward silence. After all, many of them had been wagging their fingers at all and sundry for bringing upon Pakistain so much violence and bloodshed; blaming everyone from 'US imperialism' to 'liberal fascists' to drone attacks, to 'sold-out media houses' to even a group of teenage girls who were shot by bandidosmurderous Moslems in Swat ...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat... three years ago ‐ yes, everyone but those who, by and large, are actually committing the violence.
Zaid Hamid Syed Zaiduzzaman Hamid, better known as Zaid Hamid, is a Pakistani security consultant and political commentator.
Nevertheless, many of them were caught in no man's land when school children began to fall by the dozens to the bullets and bombs of bandidosmurderous Moslems at a school in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar. ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire. Just how could one justify, rationalise and obfuscate the mindless slaughter of school children and that too for an obscure, myopic and vindictive cause? Who was the holy man who issued the fatwa saying it was okay under Islam to slit the throats of little kids? Guy who used to live in Britain? Religious authority for Algeria's GAI?
One just couldn't, and thus the silence. One doesn't have to. Islam = Sadism.
One could easily taunt those who went suddenly quiet on that dreadful day. But the truth is that despite their penchant for tweeting and 'facebooking' arrogant spiels and convoluted rationales for reactionary shenanigans, their silence did prove that their minds were still mammalian in nature and hadn't entirely regressed to becoming reptilian. The "peace" Islam brings is the peace of the grave.
One did see a few statements being quoted here and there about that ubiquitous (but always elusive) 'foreign hand', but such statements were overwhelmed by the anger and the grief that erupted across the country. Short attention span syndrome is just around the corner.
It is correct to point out that politicising a tragedy of such a magnitude would be trivialising it. Yes, there are still mainstream political parties out there who remain frustratingly obscure and vague about their stand on the issue of terrorism and extremism in Pakistain. As long as you've got religious parties you're ruled by holy men. As long as you've got blasphemy law you're ruled by holy men. The faithful turn out to riot a the least hint of blasphemy, but we never see them stringing up the nearest Taliban.
Yes, one of them just couldn't get itself to make a decision (about challenging this issue head-on) and was pushed into making one by the military; and yes, another party just refused to see beyond the nose of its rather contrived and naïve understanding of the same issue. It's not only in Pakistain that tight turban doublethink is regarded as "naive," but it's ground zero.
Never mind the fact that I once saw two very popular rock stars (in a news report) actually suggesting that 'extremism was not an issue in Pakistain.' Suffocation isn't an issue in a vacuum.
Never mind the fact that the proof is in the pudding and both the gentlemen kept repeating their brilliant insight even when the pudding was flowing from their mouths, nose and ears.
Never mind the apologists who only a few months ago (on TV) were describing civilian deaths in terror attacks as ' casualties of war', but then in the same breath insisted 'this is not our war.'
Yes, all this is true, but despite the cynical fear that this tragedy might soon be forgotten, I have never before seen so many distinct Paks behaving as if each one of them was now on the same boat.
The entirely meaningless and horrid deaths of all those school kids have well and truly shocked the nation like no other tragedy or act of terror. In each one of those fallen boys and girls, Paks across classes, ethnicities and political inclinations saw a child of their own ‐ a son, a daughter, a nephew, a grandchild ... It is unfortunate that a nation who considers itself to be proud, patriotic and passionate, had to wait right till the point where their children began to fall so tragically, so heartbreakingly to finally come to a state of a sombre and desperate unity.
This must not be forgotten. This must never be forgotten. This must be molded in the making of a brand new existential narrative for the besieged nation.
This point of unity achieved with the senseless deaths of over 50,000 Pak civilians, soldiers, politicians, cops and now over a hundred school children must be free of all politics and ideologies punctuated by false bravado, obfuscation, paranoid theories or cyclic navel-gazing.
Our military leaders, civilian representatives in the parliament (and even on the streets), our media, in fact each one of us must immediately strive to reach that long-awaited new consensus about exactly what kind of a Pakistain we want; how to achieve it and, more so, make sure that never again will we allow a madness that causes thousands of mothers and fathers cry over the still bodies of their children.
This article starring:
Zaid Hamid
Posted by: Fred ||
12/17/2014 12:39 ||
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#1
Has anyone claimed credit or provided a realistic explanation of why yet?
#3
Tehreek-i-Taliban said they did it because Malala got the Nobel Prize. *shrug* It's as good an excuse as any for hitting out at the army for killing their people. It's not like they can do anything against the American drones, after all.
#4
That reference to India and December 16th in the Tweet is because December 16th is Victory Day in India.
From Wikipedia:
"Victory Day) is also commemorated every 16 December in India as it marks its military victory over Pakistan in 1971 during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, who were alliance of Bangladesh Mukti Bahini . The end of the war also resulted in the unilateral and unconditional surrender of the Pakistan Army and subsequent secession of East Pakistan into Bangladesh. On this day in 1971, the chief of the Pakistani forces, General Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi, along with 93,000 troops, surrendered to the allied forces consists of Indian Army and Mukti Bahini, led by General Jagjit Singh Aurora, of India in the Ramna Race Course, now Suhrawardy Udyan, in Dhaka after their defeat in the war.[1] The anniversary of Vijay Divas is observed across India by paying tributes to the martyrs who laid down their lives for the nation. In the nation's capital New Delhi, the Indian Minister of Defence and heads of all three wings of the Indian armed forces pay homage at Amar Jawan Jyoti at India Gate in New Delhi as well as in the National Military Memorial, Bangalore.[citation needed]
On December 16 every year, Citizens, senior officials, students & war veterans lay wreaths and remember the sacrifices of the soldiers. Member of Parliament Mr. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who has continued to support the ex servicemen and the armed forces and pursued One Rank One Pension, says, "Don't let down our heroes, as we commemorate Vijay Diwas."
[DAWN] With the massacre of more than 130 school children by Taliban gunnies, pressure has mounted on politicians and generals to act against the internal threat of terrorism.
"There have been national leaders who been apologetic about the Taliban," said Sherry Rehman, a former envoy to Washington and prominent opposition politician. "People will have to stop equivocating and come together in the face of national tragedy."
Outrage over the killing of so many children is likely to seriously erode sympathy for gunnies in a country where many people have long been suspicious of the US-led "war on terror".
The devastating attack could spur the army to intensify an offensive it launched this year on havens in mountains along the Afghan border. Army chief Raheel Sharif has already signaled that retaliation would follow.
"The Taliban may be trying to slacken the resolve of the military by suggesting that there could be a tremendous human costs to the military offensive and create public pressure on the military to back off from this offensive," said Vali Nasr, dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
"But it may actually ricochet on them," said Nasr, formerly a State Department adviser on Afghanistan and Pakistain.
Pakistain's Taliban, whose nominal unity has frayed this year with the emergence of competing factions, are distinct from the Afghan Taliban. But the groups are linked, and share the goals of toppling their respective governments and setting up an Islamist state across the region.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/17/2014 12:06 ||
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#1
Not to worry - the ISI won't let things get to the point of effectiveness.
[DAWN] There is no sight uglier than a child’s corpse. I can say this because I have seen one dying before my eyes.
When a child dies, no words can console the grieving hearts of parents. And a cowardly terror attack on a school just snatched over a hundred children from the warm embrace of their parents in Peshawar.
Just try understanding the magnitude, the size of this all. More than a hundred families will now have their child-shaped holes in their lives forever. Parents all over the country will think twice before sending their children to schools again.
The children that survived the ghastly attack will never be the same again; their innocence, their childhood gone. It takes years for trauma victims to recover. Some don't recover even after that.
The question on every mind is, when the grieving is over, will the nation unite against the spectre of terrorism?
If the past is any guide, the sad answer would be no.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/17/2014 11:59 ||
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#1
I wonder how the author feels about firing rockets at Israel's cities?
Jerusalem — December 16, 2014 … As Jewish children light candles, celebrating the first night of Hanukkah in Israel, the world turns it’s attention to a bloody massacre in Peshawar, Pakistan.
Over 130 children aged 10 to 18 were murdered by Islamic terrorists in an attack by the Taliban (formally known as Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP) on a Pakistan military-run school. Some seven suicide bombers charged the school with automatic weapons and explosives.
Israel and Pakistan, which do not share diplomatic relations, do communicate. Most of the communication takes places through their embassies in Turkey. In the past they have assisted one another with INTEL on terror groups which threaten both nations. But now the time has come for both nations to normalize relations.
If not for trade, then for their children.
Both nations are respected for their moderate values in a very tough Middle Eastern neighborhood. The people of both nations share much in common with an accent on agriculture, high-tech, education and love for family.
The days of Israel labeling Pakistan “an antisemitic state” and Pakistan counter-labeling Israel “a Zionist and racist state” must be replaced with the sharing of intelligence that will save lives and create bridges between the Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities.
Islamic terror groups, ISIS, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Taliban, Hezbollah and al-Qaeda target Jews and Christians as “infidels” which they state need to be destroyed in a Jihad or Holy War. But the hatred shared by these terror groups is far greater for Muslims who embrace Western values. Democracy, equal rights for women and free speech is not tolerated by the Taliban in Pakistan.
The Pakistan Taliban are against Western-style education for children and the employment of women. Most famously, their terrorists shot schoolgirl education activist Malala Yousafzai in the head in 2012 as she traveled on a school bus. She survived to receive a Nobel Peace Prize last week.
As Israel quietly extends condolences and humanitarian aid to the families who lost loved ones in Peshawar, Pakistan must realize one thing.
The blood of Jewish and Muslim children is the same.
There is no reason on this good earth that these children should not be protected with any and all security assets available. Respect, understanding and tolerance must now transcend hate, propaganda and mistrust.
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the assault in Peshawar and rushed to the area to show his support for the victims.
The prime minister vowed that Pakistan would not be cowed by the violence and that the military would continue with an aggressive operation to neutralize terrorism.
“The fight will continue. No one should have any doubt about it,” Sharif said.
Sharif and his government should, without delay, include democratic Israel in this fight.
In traditional Pashtun culture, thousands of years old, women and children were left untouched in warfare. No self-respecting man would harm a woman or a child. He would not be welcomed back to his village, and women would mock him. What kind of man kills women or children?
In June, under pressure from the U.S., which wants to leave Afghanistan and not worry about more attacks, the Pakistani Army went into the tribal areas along the Afghan border that are the headquarters of the Pakistani Taliban. The Pakistani Army is still there -- with planes, artillery, and tanks killing Taliban, but also women and children.
Before the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001, the Pakistani Army never went into the tribal areas. Never. The first time was in 2003, again under pressure from the U.S. More at the link
Only a day after we watched pundits and commentators bend over backwards and do cartwheels to inform us the events in Sydney were not about Islam but about one deranged individual, the mass murder of school children in Peshawar occurred, an act reminiscent of Pol Pot at his worst with a soupçon of Dr. Mengele. Our considerate and sophisticated State Department rushed in to reassure us that this was the work of the Pakistani Taliban, not the Afghani Taliban with whom the Department is trying to make some sort of deal as the U.S. troops exit that country. Never mind that these Taliban said this was only a “trailer” and that there was more to come, or as our buddy Richard Fernandez put it so succinctly, “Who cares about mere beheadings anymore? That’s so yesterday.”
No, the Department has moved on to its more important work, badgering Israel. In that they are joined by the Europeans, who are falling all over themselves to recognize a Palestinian state in the Security Council. The U.S. normally vetoes this nonsense, but not our John Kerry. He is playing it coy, saying he hasn’t seen the details yet. Or maybe he wants to wait to see if the North Koreans blow up our movie theaters first. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party is in an orgy of recrimination for so-called torture techniques they all signed on to in the first place. It’s a nightmare. U.S. foreign policy in the Obama-Clinton-Kerry years has turned into a bad revival of The Rocky Horror Show. We might as well get it over with and hand our country to the Taliban and ISIS. After all, they’re not Islamic. Our president told us. So they’ll be tolerant of other religions, even atheists. Yes, they have some problems with women, but our feminists will set them to rights, after they get rid of Hirsi Ali.
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Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
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Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
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Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
While the financial media is riveted with the spectacle of the ruble meltdown and the Russian government rate hike to 17%, and the investor rush out of all things emerging markets, another drama is playing out in Ukraine. If you’ve been following this drama, the Ukraine economy is substantially intertwined with Russia’s, and Russia was already subsidizing it by giving it a break on gas prices. When things got ugly, Russia revoked the subsidy, demanded repayment of outstanding gas debts, and cut off gas shipments. This made for an ugly situation, since 70% of gas to Europe goes through pipelines that transit Ukraine meaning Ukraine could simply steal European-bound gas if they got desperate, creating a conflict with one of their new patrons. Moreover, it raised the specter that any rescue of Ukraine would wind up routing funds to Gazrpom to pay off the gas bill, another outcome unappealing to a West determined to punish Russia every way it could (the dispute over the outstanding debt is being arbitrated, with a decision due next summer, which also allows Europe to wash its hands of money going to Gazprom).
In traditional Pashtun culture, thousands of years old, women and children were left untouched in warfare. No self-respecting man would harm a woman or a child. He would not be welcomed back to his village, and women would mock him. What kind of man kills women or children?
