I also love the fact that the CIA can spy on US Senate members with impunity,

Thanks Obama!

And lie to Congress with impunity!

I've read a couple news blurbs on the report but did not see anything regarding when the "enhanced interrogations" stopped?

Does not put the CIA in a good light.

Has the CIA ever been in a good light?

Where did you see this reported?

I'm not disputing that perhaps it's real, but the CIA has no domestic charter and as a result activities in the US are supposed to be a no-no. We had to leave that kind of crap up to the NSA and FBI when I was there.

Feinstein says CIA spied on Senate computers

Arguably immediate extrajudicial killing would have been considerably more humane, especially if done via normal execution means as opposed to, say, a drone strike (i.e. no chance of unintended collateral damage).

Hmmmm...we could pull all our guys out of Quantanamo and return it to a bombing range. I'm even good with drones doing their thing although B-52's would make it more fun to watch on NPR.

Yeah, put me in this camp if we had legitimate reasons to execute them(I'm guessing that in most cases yes)

Well, good news, we have legitimate reasons to execute them. I'm all for getting it over with....we can even have the next President apologize for it. Winning all the way around.

Eh, we're conflating two different things (thanks Dutch!).

The torture wasn't done as any part of a quasi-judicial process. It was done, ostensibly, to get information. Only torture doesn't work to get information. On this topic I am still of the mind (as I have posted numerous times over the past 10 years) that other methods, like those the FBI used on some of the detainees, that produced actual actionable intel, should have been used instead.

On the judicial side, I still think we should have (still should) bring them into the court system if possible. I don't find the arguments that they would win acquittal convincing, especially for high value targets (like KSM). Where it gets murky is the use of drones (or otherwise) to essentially murder targets without any due process. This is due, mainly, to the murkiness of what constitutes a "battlefield" these days, and I think that's still a concept we're going to need to work through as a society.

If we apply domestic criminal law to them they'd all have to be released immediately and no charges could ever be brought. If we made exceptions there, then they'd just be phony show proceedings. Especially when everybody would know that there's certain guys that aren't going anywhere regardless of the outcome in court. Acquittal on the merits isn't the only thing that precludes convictions. Violations of constitutional rights can as well.

Edit: And of course at this point we HAVE released most prisoners - the ones still there are the ones we're most worried about, and they're un-prosecutable at this point because of the torture alone, let alone speedy trial and admissible evidence issues.

I think there's a way to create some sort of military tribunal process that at least provides some definitive outcome to these cases. I'm somewhat flexible on the process, as long as there is a process.

I am completely against torture, but I do want our Intel teams to get answers...whatever works best and if the FBI has the ethical and best method they need to share that.

I will dumb down the "battlefield" argument. The USA hasn't declared war in 75 years, but we still get the terms...Vietnam War, Korean War, Iraq War, Afghanistan War. I get the legalese, but if we are comfortable and fairly unified in calling it a war, we need to be equal comfortable calling them battlefields. Unfortunately, I have no idea how that logic translates in the courts.

Perhaps a similar situation:
I do know the courts are fairly agile in calling something a hate crime even if the defendant hasn't admitted to being a racist or even admitting racist tendencies.

They are also pretty agile in calling something a murder, even if the defendant hasn't admitted to a murder or killing someone.

Why?

The official line is that most of the evidence against them was obtained through torture, and because public trials would involve an unacceptable volume of classified material. A judge could also dismiss the charges based on any number of constitutional violations - speedy trial, inhumane pretrial conditions, lack of meaningful access to the courts and habeas corpus relief. It's not a legitimate prosecution strategy to imprison and torture someone for 15-20 years before you initiate trial proceedings. That permanently hampers your chance to build any kind of meaningful defense. You'd have to go back a long time to find examples of that kind of thing in U.S. criminal law, but it wouldn't fly today.

Funny how everyone blames the Congress for being too partisan and not doing anything, then when a bill is passed, filled with lots compromise, each side yells sell out and weakness

Sorry, I should have clarified. I meant that I still believe we should have brought folks like KSM to trial much earlier, and in similar circumstances should attempt to do the same with people who do these things today.

I buy the argument that someone like KSM might get out of trial in a large part because of the torture.

I don't buy the argument that you can't try these guys in court due to national security / classified material. Because we have done so.

Maybe I lost something in translation, but I feel like you are supporting my analogy and agreeing with me by presenting a similar analogy. We might have to make a note of this, if I'm reading you right. :)

Ah, American politics. No one is ever happy.

Cheney is now completely morally bankrupt.

Like he wasn't before?

I really hope this guy goes overseas and summarily jailed for being a war criminal. Because he is.

Yeah, but at least he had the decency to lie about torture before. Now he's proud of torturing and killing innocents.

That's one way to spin it. He may be very defensive, but he's also very proud of the accomplishments after 9/11 in getting the bad guys. The assumption that anybody is perfect in war is the morally bankrupt argument.

He's expressed zero regret for torturing and killing innocents. This isn't about perfection, this is about a guy that has stated that killing innocents doesn't bother him. If that isn't morally bankrupt, I don't know what is.

He actually doesn't believe it was torture. He's on the record as saying (paraphrasing mine) "we were very careful to stop short of torture."

That's the company line so they don't get prosecuted for war crimes. They don't deny that the techniques listed in the Senate report happened. Anal feedings, waterboarding, etc. are internationally defined as torture regardless of what Cheney says.

You want him prosecuted for war crimes but not terrorists? Your partisan efforts are laughable dude, sorry.

Whose or which culture's or which authority are you basing morality on? Does such morality changes depending upon the circumstances or the person in question? What would be criteria for being morally bankrupt as oppose to partially bankrupt? I believe it is so easy to point fingers at those with obvious hardened hears (such Cheney) but it is less easy to point fingers at yourself or others that are not so obvious.

He only holds old white Republicans with much regard...everybody else apparently doesn't know better. So they are exempt.

Actually I've said I'm fine with military tribunals for suspected terrorists, but keep fucking that chicken!

I'd agree with that, but I don't think the answer is excusing all abhorrent behavior. There are things that should be called as out of bounds for a decent human or a decent government.

I agree but you're talking about laws and ethics which all citizens of a country should be bound to. The minute you and others start throwing out the word morality (in terms of a person), you are talking about something different altogether - not to mention that there is no such thing as a nation's morality (which seems to be a common phrase recently).

Well, harp on that a little more than all the other bullshit you harp on. Your reality is apparently not connected with your post counts suggesting otherwise.

I don't have the same issues with the word as you, but I'm fine changing it to abhorrent if that works better. My original point was that Cheney is completely out of bounds for a decent society. I have no problem defending that position.

Let's see the times when I've said terrorists shouldn't be prosecuted. If I've said it a lot it shouldn't be hard for you to find.

Oh I realize that.

I'm just pointing out that his shittyness is even moreso than your comment.

In this case, I'd go with the Geneva convention.

Yeah, there's plenty of Dems, including Obama that are culpable to some degree.

And they should all face trial before the ICC too.

Along with Bush, Cheney, etc.

The reality is that we've known she knew what Cheney knew for a long time and yet, nobody on the left really cared because she's on your team...and the discussion on TV all week was about burning Republicans at the stake, not Democrats. It's all a partisan farce if you ask me.

There is a substantive difference between knowing and ordering.

But my concern is that this never happens again, so I'm fine with whatever accomplishes that.

While I agree with you, to the extent that they voted to fund the agencies/programs that undertook it instead of voting against them or inserting specific riders prohibiting it (symbolic as it may have been since the money would no doubt be found elsewhere in those agencies budgets) IMHO makes them at least somewhat culpable. Not as much as those who ordered/developed it, but they didn't do anything from their positions of power to even symbolically oppose it.

Look above. I said they were culpable.

But the reason this week has been about Cheney et al. is because those were the architects of the program. They created and justified the program, so of course the coverage is about them.

I think the release of the report has spurred things obviously. And you're not seeing Pelosi et. al. coming out to defend it, so they're not making themselves natural targets.

Plus like you said, architects vs. enablers.

Both culpable, but one moreso than the other.

I wish the country would unite and shame all of those that created or okayed the torture programs. It's a huge stain on our honor that we will all move on with no one facing any consequences.

Some things are given and go without saying. Prosecuting terrorists is one of those.

Fair, I guess we all need to be a little more outspoken when it comes to prosecuting Republicans. :)

Despite the long history of abuse, and these current revelations, I'm no where near my limit..

Oops, sorry, thought this was the NFL thread

It's a huge indictment of our collective intelligence that so many worry about copperheads & rattlesnakes so much.

Who would Jesus torture?

I show my high school Government class "The Fog of War" and have them answer the question: Is it acceptable to do evil in order to achieve a greater good? Here are some of their answers over the years:

(Engaging in evil to achieve a good) is a simple matter of healthy selfishness.

Sometimes, to save the maximum amount of lives, you need to kill a lot of people

If we can justify (doing evil) as maximizing our efficiency, then we can also justify a terrorist suicide bomber sacrificing his life to kill more of the enemy, because there is essentially no difference in the rationality of the two.

The Girl Scouts can’t fight Communism with bake sales, so I simply don’t see any other way than to fight destruction with destruction.

It is more important for us to protect our citizens and our rights than to protect foreign civilians and their rights.

Killing one person is the same as killing a million since one life already means nothing.

i'm curious why you've saved these among the many responses you've received over the years. do you regard these as the most chilling, most misguided, most insightful, or some other superlative?

These represent many similar responses I get each time. I have a power point that I update each year and then show the students. By now there are only a couple original statements I need to add.

EDIT: This is not a complete list, there are lots of other, more mild amd pragmatic ones. I more or less wanted to show some extremes, in light of the current torture discussion.

Not sure how much it'll hurt us but Russia is in deep doo-doo. Fracking 1, Russia 0.

Russia heading for crash as ruble plummets - Dec. 15, 2014

Fracking is in trouble as well. It is Saudi Arabia that is keeping the price-per-barrel low. The low price is also making fracking unprofitable, and the stock prices of several fracking stocks have cratered recently.

Same with oil sands in Canada. Our low oil prices right now are a byproduct of trying to crush competition.

SI

The Economist explaination (it also says frackers are in trouble):

The Economist explains: Why the oil price is falling | The Economist

Didn't see this coming:

Awesome.

Looking forward to checking it out!!

My sister went when she was studying abroad in Ecuador. My business partner is going in like January on some MIT Alumni trip.

I know a bunch of Canadians who go all the time.

I am looking forward to that! Good news and it takes a lame duck prez and some courage to do this. Hopefully it gets done. I'm not condoning their overly socialist state, but its time to put a close on those old political rivalries.

...and best of all...Cuban cigars for everybody!

Bah. "General tourism still not allowed"

Baby steps.

I forget, why don't we trade with Cuba when we trade with former enemies such as Japan and dictatorships such as Saudi Arabia?

If you want to go to Cuba, now's probably the best time, before the inevitable opening up to U.S. tourism. It's a little tricky and carries some risk (financial risk, you won't be locked up or anything), but lots of Americans make unlicensed trips there through other countries.

Obama has now opened up meaningful talks with both Cuba and Iran. It'll be an interesting legacy, that's for sure.

From one good socialist to another, not a huge surprise that this p.o.s. would do something like that.

More hopeful news from the story however

Yeah, my sister did it through Mexico when she was in Ecuador.

Because Castro fucked us after we helped him get to power is the basic answer....and the free Cuban citizens in America hated him for it...much, much more personal than Saudi or Japan. Goes back to the geography related disasters discussions.

Obama's not a socialist in any halfway-reasonable definition of the word. I mean, seriously Jon, you do have an education. :rolleyes:

Fixed.

I just want local cigar shops to carry Cohibas.

It just shows that education means nothing when put in the hands of someone who thinks they are eternally right about everything.

December 17, 2014 1:14 PM
Cuba (the Energy Drink Company) Soars 140% on Cuba (the Country) News

Shares of Cuba Beverage, an energy-drink company with sales of $9,961 last quarter, are soaring Wednesday in what appears to be the latest example of a company’s stock being affected by news events that are completely unrelated to its business.

Because Florida is an important and contested state in presidential elections.

re: Cuba

About damned time.

There is nothing that spreads American (realpolitik) interests more than American led capitalism taking over an economy.

Yeah we needed to open up relations with Cuba ages ago - the whole embargo thing is a Cold War leftover that has basically zero real world necessity in this day and age. Of course it's still a nightmare politically.

It also makes things with Russia and Putin very interesting-whose economy and currency are just in a free-fall right now. I'm not an Obama fan at all, but I think this was a brilliant cheese move by him (maybe could of negotiated a little tougher, but I'll let it go).

The timing of this is a little interesting, however.


For all of their props over the cigars, does Cuba have a good rum culture?

Wonder what Fidel is thinking now?

Regardless, I'm glad Obama did this regardless of the political implications.

Several 'high-value' ISIS leaders killed in Iraq, Pentagon officials say | Fox News

ISIS leadership is getting worked over these last couple of weeks. It just doesn't pay to be a terrorist organization anymore. You get a couple of weeks or months of publicity and then blamo...you're dead.

Ever heard of Bacardi? That's where it is from.

It does seem that Obama's strategy in Iraq is working. Air plus Kurds seem to have stem the ISIS momentum. Long war ahead though for Iraqis and Kurds to reclaim all the territory

Yazidis get relief, reason to cheer as Kurds take town - CNN.com

Off topic, but still presidential. Pres. Bush visited a hospital as Santa to hand out gifts. Secret Service agents were dressed as elves.

Jason Cooper on Twitter: "George W. Bush showing up as Santa to visit a hospital. #MerryChristmas http://t.co/Tb9Fh0TC7b"

A little good news for Obama helped by his immigration and Cuba actions.

Some former US presidents may kick themselves and ask why didn't I do that.

Poll: Obama ends year on an upswing - CNN.com

Its worked out for me personally during the Obama years and the Great
Recession is over for me but know its more than stock market and nebulous GDP numbers. I'm optimistic about the future but there have been people hurt that may not recover fully.

The Psychological Damage of the Recession Is Not Going Away - Businessweek

"With changes in technology the middle class is being hollowed out..."?

I'm reading this as "Advancements in technology is a bad thing." Are you getting the same read?

I'm not sure its "technology is bad", but instead "technology can have a negative impact on certain parts of society that aren't prepared to deal with the change, and we haven't determined how exactly to address that yet."

It can be if it continually takes jobs away from people. Produce a bunch of product cheaper and faster sounds great until so many people don't have money to buy your product.

Yeah another noteworthy item from that article is the rate of self-employment thats been steadily dropping for a few decades. we seems to be hitting a point where there is a lot of consolidated markets (good for efficiency in ways), a lot of outsourced low-skill jobs (to robots or Asia), and a gigantic amount of people that aren't in any way ready for the pace of change thats swept right by them and not slowing down.

We are probably going to need to have some serious conversations in this country (and the world over) on what we do with the swarms of people who won't be capable of performing the (likely inadequate anyway) amount of jobs.

I have long been an advocate for some truly massive energy infrastructure initiatives. The amount of construction work associated to something like that would be an enormous boost to the construction industry which happens to have a lot of the displaced workers.

I agree with a bunch of you guys. Not to make it sound all dramatic, but we're in the middle of a paradigm shift. Advances in technology and efficiency mean there aren't going to be enough jobs to go around. This is a big, big change for societies, and they're going to need to figure out how to work with that.

In an economic sense, yes, that seems fair.

As I've said repeatedly, we have an employment age surplus not a job shortage.

People have said this in various epochs in history. It's basically a new form of Malthusian Economics. Technology usually tends to increase productivity, but also provides work. The greatest technological boom in history was the Industrial Revolution, and contrary to the protestations of the Luddites, things worked out ok for working people in the long run.

There may be short run slow downs of employment and retraining required, but to think its a long term trend of no work just ignores economic history completely.

That's fair. So, speculation time. What's the new work going to be?

The workers who lost their jobs when factories and automation came along tended not to get re-employed, but their children found jobs in offices (wild generalizations here). What's the next generation going to do?

This is not meant sarcastically. I'm actually interested in ideas.

My thoughts -

IoT - Internet of Things
Goldman Sachs | Macroeconomic Insights - The Internet of Things: The Next Mega-Trend

Energy - I'm not convinced about green/reusable/sustainable energy technologies but do think overall energy will be in the forefront for a while (e.g. fracking, electric cars)


Nice to have but wishful thinking as they are too narrow ...

Healthcare - from home healthcare services to high end drugs to treat seniors

Education - I think my kids are getting a good PS education and think they will get a good college education. I do think there is an opportunity to emphasize trade schools (e.g. they can't be outsourced) for those that do not choose college.

The arts. Or maybe blogging. We could always use more bloggers.