Huffington Post by way of WaPo:
McCain Can’t Keep Stories Straight On Iraq, Torture
No one should be surprised. McCain’s flip-flopping is in line with that of other Bush administration apologists, including this guy:
It’s almost painful watching administration officials try to deflect criticism of waterboarding by speaking of context and “actionable intelligence” and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. We’re in a war, they tell us, and wars call for extraordinary measures.
If this is true, then how to explain the Japanese soldier sentenced to 15 years in prison for waterboarding an American during World War II? He was convicted by a US court of war crimes.
Is this another instance of context? How does that work again?
By the way, there’s an interesting passage found at the bottom of that Japanese waterboarding story. It reads:
When questions began to be raised (in 2005) about the handling of high-level detainees and Congress passed legislation barring torture, the handful of CIA interrogators and senior officials who authorized their actions became concerned that they might lose government support.
Passage (in September 2006) of military commissions legislation provided retroactive legal protection to those who carried out waterboarding and other coercive interrogation techniques.
“Retroactive legal protection.” It’s a familiar refrain for the Bush administration, isn’t it?
•••••
Glenn Greenwald over at Salon, in a post titled, The Leader isn’t protecting us and keeping us safe:
According to the President and his followers, we will be — as of the stroke of midnight tonight — no longer safe, no longer protected, no longer snug and secure in the strong and loving arms of our Federal Government. That’s because the Protect America Act — a law which has only existed for six months yet is now indispensable to America’s ability to survive and avoid being slaughtered by the Terrorists — expires tonight.
The President himself this morning dramatically intoned: “At the stroke of midnight tonight, a vital intelligence law that is helping protect our nation will expire.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell gravely pointed out: “What will happen at midnight tonight is much more significant than stump speeches, steroids or superdelegates. On Sunday, the terrorist tracking program . . . no longer will be fully operational….”
This is one of the most bizarre propaganda dramas ever, even when weighed against other Bush Terrorism propaganda dramas of the past….
UPDATE: The deeply serious Heritage Foundation — and this is real — has a countdown clock on its frontpage, showing to the… milisecond the time that we all have left before we become — all together now — unsafe and unprotected:
It is true, of course, that many right-wing polemicists use fearmongering techniques like this manipulatively, to exploit the Terrorist threat for more unchecked government power and to advance their political agenda. But many of them actually believe this… This pitiful, fear-drenched absurdity is the face of the Bush Movement, the symbol of the post-9/11 Bush Era in the United States….
Had enough of this bullshit? Impeach now.
Filed under: crime, george bush, impeachment, iraq war, politics, u.s. history
