Bradley Manning Is Not Happy In Jail
Dec 20, 2010 Political
The Army Private who stole classified US Documents and gave them to Julian Assange has been in jail for several months and most of the time he is in solitary confinement. It seems that this is making him quite unhappy and it is allowing those who support him to throw around accusations like Manning is being tortured.
Oh not the pull out the fingernails kind of torture, but the solitary confinement and the conditions under which he is being held. Greg Greenwald of Salon Magazine said that Manning is being held in inhumane conditions because he is kept in his cell, alone, for 23 hours a day and he is not allowed to read newspapers or use the Internet.
Considering a computer is what got him in trouble he might want to avoid them.
In any event, this little punk is not being tortured. He is being held until his trial and he is being held in the manner the military sees fit. Manning stole classified information and gave it to a man who has been publishing it around the world in an effort to embarrass the United States (under the guise of making us transparent).
As far as I am concerned Manning deserves what he gets. I would say he is innocent until proven guilty but he admitted that he is the one who stole the information when he was in a bad way after his gay lover broke up with him. He described exactly what he did and that is an admission of guilt.
He is a traitor to this country and an absolute disgrace to his uniform. If they give him the death penalty he will have more than earned it though I think he should get life without the possibility of parole. He should have to spend the rest of his miserable life at Leavenworth breaking great big rocks into little bitty rocks and little bitty rocks into sand.
Greg Greenwald might think Manning is being tortured but that is far from the case. If this puke is convicted and sentenced to serve his time in a military prison it will not be long before he begs to be removed from the general population and placed in solitary confinement.
The criminals there will not take too kindly to a traitor.
The name Bradley Manning holds the same status as the name Benedict Arnold.
Too bad Manning did not behave himself. Don’t ask, don’t tell is about to become show and tell.
That would be right up his alley.
Source:
The Blaze
Cave Canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
[tip]If you enjoy what you read consider signing up to receive email notification of new posts. There are several options in the sidebar and I am sure you can find one that suits you. If you prefer, consider adding this site to your favorite feed reader. If you receive emails and wish to stop them follow the instructions included in the email.[/tip]
Tags: bradley manning, greg greenwald, lies, salon, torture, wikileaks
How Could Eric Holder Forget This?
Mar 13, 2010 Political
Attorney General and terrorist sympathizer Eric Holder seems to have neglected to include about seven legal briefs he signed in the packet of stuff he provided to the Senate when he went through the confirmation process.
I understand that a politician lawyer like Holder is busy and probably signs a lot of things but two of the briefs involved appeals to the Supreme Court. A lot of attorneys go through their entire career and do not submit stuff to the SCOTUS so one would think this is not the kind of stuff that would be forgotten. What else could make him neglect to send them?
Two of the briefs involved appeals to the Supreme Court for Jose Padilla, who sought release from a military prison in South Carolina where he was being held after then-President George W. Bush designated him an “enemy combatant.” al-Reuters
Oh, more on the terror support front, got it.
Holder is a little weasel. He has been involved in a number of pardons of bad people like Marc Rich, members of the FALN and of the Weather Underground (yes the Bill Ayers terrorist group). He is just a low life weasel who has little regard for the law and sees it more as a vehicle to enact social justice.
Yes, he has a sordid past and yes he deliberately withheld information from the Senate.
He is a pathetic little man who should resign his position and slither back under the rock he emerged from.
And he can save some room for that cretin Obama as well.
Other Holder hits:
OKC Bombing cover-up
Waco cover-up
Torture of US Citizen cover-up
How do we allow pieces of cow dung like this guy to be anywhere near our political system?
[tip]If you enjoy what you read consider signing up to receive email notification of new posts. There are several options in the sidebar and I am sure you can find one that suits you. If you prefer, consider adding this site to your favorite feed reader. If you receive emails and wish to stop them follow the instructions included in the email.[/tip]
Tags: cover up, eric holder, ignorance, lies, murder, torture
Pelosi Clears Bush Of Wrongdoing
May 11, 2009 Political
Nancy Pelosi has stated on several occasions that she was informed of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EIT) but that she was never told that they had been used. Pelosi received her information during classified briefings and she no doubt believed that the secrecy would protect her.
Unfortunately for her, Barack Obama released classified memos of detailed legal opinions rendered by Bush administration lawyers. Those memos were extremely detailed and laid out the legal justification for the EITs including the opinion that they were within the boundaries established in the law passed by Congress.
The CIA was not particularly thrilled with the release of the memos because that act gave our enemies information about how we do business. The CIA was also not pleased with all the talk of people being prosecuted. In order to set the record straight the CIA released its own memos detailing the classified briefings. Those memos as well as the statements by others in attendance clearly show that Pelosi was briefed not only on the EITs but that they had been used. These memos contradict her denials and demonstrate that she lied.
Pelosi has now taken a new tact with regard to this issue. Continued denial is pointless so Pelosi is now asserting that the lawyers told her it was legal:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted Friday that she was briefed only once about the “enhanced” interrogation techniques being used on terrorism suspects and that she was assured by lawyers with the CIA and the Department of Justice that the methods were legal. Fox News
Her statement now clears Bush administration officials of any wrong doing because they too were told by the lawyers that the EITs were legal. When Pelosi wanted to go after Bush she was content lying to the public and accusing him of wrongdoing but now she is saying that she did no wrong because the lawyers said it was OK. This means that everyone who followed the legal opinion is in the clear.
Another important issue is the lawyers themselves. They gave a well reasoned legal opinion and should not be prosecuted for interpreting the law to the best of their ability. If these folks are made scapegoats for rendering an opinion (one I happen to agree with) then this will leave the door open to prosecute all lawyers that render an opinion that turns out to be unpopular.
We have a judicial system where courts decide if laws are Constitutional. If anyone had questions about the legality of the opinion rendered then they could have taken the issue to the courts and had the courts decide. Since no one did that it is reasonable to assume that those who were briefed were comfortable with the legal opinion.
Obama opened a Pandora’s Box when he released the Bush legal memos. His decision to do so was politically motivated and his desire was to shed bad light on the Bush administration. Unfortunately for him and his party, Nancy Pelosi got caught in the crossfire.
Obama can claim the EITs were torture but the legal opinion is that they were not. Until a court decides on the issue or until Congress changes the law, they are still legal.
However, Obama did not want to take the chance that a court would confirm the legality so he released the memos which effectively killed the program.
Doing that was bad enough but if he had never mentioned prosecuting people Pelosi would not have been caught in the lie and Democrats would not look like the hypocrites we know them to be.
Rookie in the White House making rookie mistakes. Those unintended consequences will come back to bite him over and over because he does not know what he is doing.
For you people in San Francisco, Pelosi lied and played politics on this issue. She pretended to be against this and not to know of it when she knew all about it and was in favor of it.
It is time to show her the door.
Others:
Instapundit | Mudville Gazette
[tip]If you enjoy what you read consider signing up to receive email notification of new posts. There are several options in the sidebar and I am sure you can find one that suits you. If you prefer, consider adding this site to your favorite feed reader. If you receive emails and wish to stop them follow the instructions included in the email.[/tip]
What Is Torture?
May 9, 2009 Political
This is the question du jour- actually more like the question of the year(s). In 2002, President Bush wanted to know the answers to that question and some questions related to that primary query. How do you define torture- is it something that produces excruciating pain and fear, or does this definition extend to discomfort?
Were the captured terrorists on the battlefield due the Geneva protocols, since they were not part of a Nation- State’s army, wore no uniforms, and behaved according to no code of ethics? These people came from various places, much like mercenaries, but unlike mercenaries, they did not wear a country’s uniform. The only way in which they were similar was in their hate for the West, and the United States in particular.
The fighters, as has been said, had no code of ethics, where they might protect the innocent as best as they could, rather, they used these innocent women and children as human shields in the way of cowards. They were not warriors- far from it- but like dogs cowering behind protection, they would boast in their videos that they could defeat their enemy. What pompous asses they were and are.
So what do you do with creatures like these? President Bush asked several lawyers to draw up legal opinions on the treatment of these terrorists, keeping in mind the Geneva Protocols regarding armed combat. The trouble with this, was that the Geneva Convention didn’t really address this situation- it was outdated with respect to the treatment of what should be called “extra- national” combatants- people who might fight for a cause but not a country.
There had always been an extra element of danger as regards the absence of a uniform- a person had no Geneva Convention protections, because then a person was treated as a spy, and the treatment was much rougher, and could (and often did) include torture. So were these people spies, because they wore no uniform? The legal minds, as they often do, split hairs. The Taliban and Al- Qaida fighters were somewhere in between, hiding among the innocent populace like cowards, but they definitely were not covered by the Geneva Convention and its rules.
So, since they were not one thing- spies- and were not regular army, the legal minds felt that perhaps, while we don’t torture, we could tweak their questioning somewhat. Now came the wrangling of just what constitutes torture. Is it physical pain, disfigurement, permanent disability? That was an easy yes, so scratch that- but what about perceived pain, anticipatory pain, or mental distress? Those are harder problems to deal with, because they are subjective- what bothers one will not bother another.
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? This is what lawyers do, and these lawyers did their job, to the best of their abilities, to try and realistically find answers to these ambiguous questions. This was not an easy job, because no matter the final answers they gave, someone would object, as we can see now.
It turns out that the real objections are political, not moral- just observe Nancy Pelosi, who knew in 2002 that these methods were being used, and her question then was not some moral objection, no- her question was, ” Is it enough?” In the wake of 9/11, she wanted to be sure that we wouldn’t be struck again- but now, with several years distance between her and 9/11, she has conveniently “forgotten” her acceptance, and just wants to use this problem for her own political gain.
The lawyers are the ones caught in the middle here, and they are not deserving of this- what they did, they did as well and faithfully as they could, not with venom and spite, seeking to gleefully inflict pain, but to find where the definition of torture lay, and how far we, as a nation, could go in trying to protect ourselves and still keep the moral high ground. This was a question that, considering the paradigm shift in warfare and terrorism that had occurred, needed to be defined and delineated for future use.
Now, I personally do not believe that water boarding is torture- it is extreme discomfort, but then these people deserve some extreme discomfort. I do not believe that putting a caterpillar in a box with a prisoner is torture, even if he is extremely scared of the insect. I believe that these people are getting some of what they deserve, because you have to understand one thing-
These people were not just picked up off of a street, they had been fighting and killing our armed forces, sometimes in cowardly ways. They would torture, and they would behead our troops. The treatment we have put them through doesn’t even come close to their activities. If you are too squeamish to handle the details, perhaps you need to read the comics, and do not read the news, because there need to be people who will do the rough stuff that is needed to protect our nation, or we won’t have a nation.
That is a fact that most liberals fail to grasp- we will not keep our selves safe by trying to be universally liked- that is a strategy that just does not work. Sometimes you have to show that you are willing to be disliked, in order to be secure. All these lawyers did was to try and find the limits to which we would go to be secure.
They cannot be faulted for that.
[tip]If you enjoy what you read consider signing up to receive email notification of new posts. There are several options in the sidebar and I am sure you can find one that suits you. If you prefer, consider adding this site to your favorite feed reader. If you receive emails and wish to stop them follow the instructions included in the email.[/tip]
Tags: lawyers, liberal cowards, terrorists, torture
Selective Memo Release Is Political In Nature
Apr 24, 2009 Political
Despite the assertions of Attorney General Eric Holder that the Administration will not selectively release “torture” memos for political reasons it appears as if that is exactly what was done. Barack Obama released the memos that laid out the legal opinion of advanced interrogation techniques. The left is going nuts claiming they show that the US tortured terrorists and there is belief that the attorneys who gave the legal opinion could be investigated for doing their jobs. The memos were released to start the witch hunt. Democrats are already salivating over the chance to go after the people from the Bush Administration who were involved in this.
The reality is that the memos show the Bush Administration went to great lengths to ensure that the law was followed. The legal opinion is clearly well researched and is rendered in accordance with the laws Congress passed. The kicker is that many Democrats including Nancy Pelosi were briefed and knew about all this and they did not raise objections. Word is that Pelosi wanted the CIA to do more. She is denying this but the evidence is mounting against her denials.
In my opinion the only harm that will come from the release is that our enemies will know what our techniques are and what they are designed to do. This makes it easier for them to train to resist them. As for the legal part, the memos show compliance.
Former VP Dick Cheney said the rest of the memos that show the success of the program should be released. Obama pooh poohed that idea and Holder says he does not know where the memos are. He said other agencies probably have them.
Ask Obama where they are. I am sure he can find them since he found the ones he selectively released. If he is truly transparent and if they will not release memos selectively for political purposes then the balance of the memos should be released to give the public the full picture of what the legal opinion was, when and how the techniques were used and what the results were.
Obama’s national intelligence director, Dennis Blair, sent a memo around the intelligence community that stated:
“From 2002 through 2006 when the use of these techniques ended,” Blair wrote, “the leadership of the CIA repeatedly reported their activities both to Executive Branch policymakers and to members of Congress, and received permission to continue to use the techniques.” NewsMax
Congress continually approved it but now wants blood.
The unfortunate reality is that the Administration is selectively releasing these to try and do harm to Bush and to lay the groundwork for prosecutions. They are playing political games with our national security.
The Obama definition of transparency, something he promised, is that he will release what, and only what, he wants you to see. Case in point, his birth certificate. No transparency there. His lawyers are sending threatening letters to those suing to have it released. Why do you suppose that is?
If he wanted to prove he was transparent that would have been the first document released. Funny, his birth certificate is guarded better than the Top Secret memos on interrogation techniques which he had no problem releasing to the public.
This is not change you can believe in.
The Wall Street Journal says this will haunt Obama.
[tip]If you enjoy what you read consider signing up to receive email notification of new posts. There are several options in the sidebar and I am sure you can find one that suits you. If you prefer, consider adding this site to your favorite feed reader. If you receive emails and wish to stop them follow the instructions included in the email.[/tip]
Tags: CIA, classified memos, holder, interrogation, Obama, torture