Actually we remember quite a bit. We remember Bush saying that thanks to Clinton’s economy, America would just steam on ahead. We remember people being incredibly happy about the progress on peace in the middle east Clinton contributed to. We also however, remember all of the shit Clinton has gotten for going on eight years now for getting a blowjob. Shit you’d have thought that Rush Limbaugh and his ilk had been offered some Whitehouse cigars the stink raised has been so bad.

We also remember how every time anyone raises the slightest bit of question over one of Bush’s many failures, we end up having to defend Clinton who is not currently the president of America.

We also remember how prior to Bush America was well known for having a good human rights record. Sure there were aberrations, but nothing like the acceptance of Waterboarding and forced feeding, which have come to pass under Bush. This is why I don’t believe the retraction on the Quran story, even in the Washington Post story on the retraction they mention female soldiers pretending to smear menstral blood on the inmates, the Quran flushing incident is not exactly out of character with that.

We also remember how the press has repeatedly savaged most presidents in the past, and how it has more or less given Bush a free pass. There are issues which the press has refused to touch with a ten foot pole, such as the Bin Ladens getting spiritted out of America right after 9/11, which need serious questions being asked about them. That the conspiracy nuts and the appologists are the only ones looking at the real questions raised by that and other events, has not been good for finding the truth (Which I still believe reflects negligence rather then intent or innocence on Bush’s part.)

We also remember how Bush’s followers have acted. The problem isn’t just Bush, it is the blind following he has, which thinks it would be the height of hillarity to stick all those who disagree with them in death camps, who think that reasoned discourse requires calling ones opponents witches and traitors, and who think that it is unreasonable to expect them to treat the widows of those who they themselves have so mercilessly used for propaganda purposes, with at least a little bit of respect.

We remember those who cannot seperate respect from agreement.

Some here remember the sixties, when this issue began. Some remember the seventies, when it began to die down, and others remember the eighties when the punks were eulagising the fight. I remember the nineties, when this was a non-issue. When both left and right, though often acrimonious could still argue the point, now it has gone so far that all we are left with is calling each other doodoo heads and trying to out outrage each other. Left and right on this central issue, the soul of the times for want of a better word, has been stolen by hate, and I am hardly immune to that.

The issue of this new age is not the individual points raised by the right or the left, it is that both wings are needed, and need to be respected, but the right has gone so far in the direction of declaring all out political war on the left, that all there is left for the left is to fight back. We have tried being respectful, we got called wussies for it. We tried seeing the other side of the argument, and for each time we have agreed, we got called flip-floppers. We tried arguing the issues, and what happened? The right argued image. So what can we do? Fight back. using the same tactics that are used against us. We have tried everything else, and we are tired of trying to reason with the unreasonable.

“There is no doubt that waterboarding is torture, despite the administration’s reluctance to say so,” said [executive director of Human Rights Watch Kenneth] Roth.

Waterboarding is prohibited under international law and domestic U.S. law. Known as the “submarino” in Latin America, where it was used extensively in the 1970s and 1980s, waterboarding has been condemned as torture for decades.
Human Rights Watch: CIA Whitewashing Torture

The US does torture. In fact Waterboarding is still an accepted means of interrogation by the CIA. It isn’t even out of the manual yet.

1. The U.S. does not torture its prisoners, You know that.

2. Just admit you were wrong about the phony Koran story and that you didn’t know it had been retracted…You can’t spin your way out of the fact you cited a now-discredited article to support your argument.

How can any of us get our facts straight when the government operates in secrecy?

Do we know what is happening with the middle of the night renditions?

Do we know what happens to those sent to countries known to use torture in their interrogations?

Do we know the full extent of the intelligence gathering operations?

Do we know whether or not we are being spied upon by our own government?

You can choose to follow a dictator blindly, Exley, or you can choose to question everything He does, at least until the purges begin.

Newsweek retracts Quran story
U.S. military says it must reach out to Afghans to ease tension
Monday, May 16, 2005 Posted: 11:49 PM EDT (0349 GMT)

Newsweek backs off a story blamed for unrest in Muslim countries.

(CNN) — Newsweek magazine issued a retraction Monday of a May 9 report on the alleged desecration of the Quran at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The report — which said American interrogators put copies of the Quran on toilets or in one case, flushed one down a toilet — was blamed for anti-American riots in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Muslim world last week.

“Based on what we know now, we are retracting our original story that an internal military investigation had uncovered Quran abuse at Guantanamo Bay,” Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker said in a statement issued Monday afternoon.

In an interview on the PBS “Newshour” Monday night, Whitaker said the problem stemmed from “one detail.”

“There were other elements in this story that people are not concerned about,” he told PBS. “This is the one detail everyone is concerned about, and we are prepared to retract that.”

Senior White House officials applauded Newsweek’s decision to retract the story but said the magazine will have to do more to repair the damage done.

“It’s a good first step,” said White House press secretary Scott McClellan.

McClellan said the magazine now has a responsibility to spread the word to the Muslim world that U.S. interrogators “treat the Quran with great care and respect.”

Bruce, if you are going to make these kind of arguments, you have got to get your facts straight.

Yes, but they have rights apart from the right to a lawyer, which have been infringed. The fact is, that you cannot isolate a POW entirely, because they have the right to inform their families that they have been captured, and the right to send and recieve letters (albeit censored ones.)

Further they have the right to expect humane treatment, and the right to expect that their most sacred symbols, such as the Koran, are not to be profaned in front of them. The Koran flushing incident, is one of a multitude of examples of breaches of the Geneva Convention.

The question of them having access to their lawyers, is because of America deciding that they are “Unlawful Combatants” and therefore subject to criminal prosecution. In essence they were being held under criminal charges, but weren’t being given the protections such charges carry with them. Now if they are to be treat as POWs, they have a whole laundry list of rights which the detaining are going to have to answer to abusing. Gitmo is no where near over, because the implications of this ruling show that warcrimes have been committed.

Is that what waterboarding is called now?

You most habitual lie of all….

You trolls need a punctuation lesson.

CAPS and !!! or ??? or ?!?!?! means anger, rage, venom.

. means an even level tone.

You are the ones who are yelling and wailing with your INSANE PUNCTUATION!!!!????!!!?!?!

While was are just talking with our sentances that end in a .