George W. Bush: Damn Right I Approved of Waterboarding
[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; send your tips here.]
Today’s comment bait is brought to you by the Washington Post which says (for now at least):
In his book, titled “Decision Points,” Bush recounts being asked by the CIA whether it could proceed with waterboarding Mohammed, who Bush said was suspected of knowing about still-pending terrorist plots against the United States. Bush writes that his reply was “Damn right” and states that he would make the same decision again to save lives, according to a someone close to Bush who has read the book.
The WaPo presented this as an example of it being a revelation. Personally I thought to myself “what else is new?” And the WAPO insinuates that “human rights experts say could one day have legal consequences for him. “ As for whether it is torture or not, I think you have to divide it between the legal question and the moral question, although you will see some interaction between the two. Morally, I would say that wherever the line between torture and tough interrogation is, waterboarding is very close to that line. I think it is on the right side of the line, as something unpleasant but not actually torturous. But I respect people who disagree. Still those who do disagree need to get off their high horse and recognize the issue is a little more subjective than they are generally pretending it is.
As for whether it is legally torture, well, here is the current wording of the U.S. Code:
“torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control;
So, you ask, what does phrase like “severe physical or mental pain or suffering” actually mean? Well, the law gives some specific examples like death threats, but outside of that I have no idea. And in fact no one does with any certainty. And I know enough about the history of the statute to know that it wasn’t any clearer at the time the waterboarding occurred.
And indeed in the criminal law that presents a very severe problem. There is something in our criminal law called the doctrine of lenity. It means that when interpreting the criminal law, the courts will interpret it in favor of the accused. This rule is designed to prevent any accused from being convicted based on an activist decision of the court. So if we tried to put Bush on trial for the waterboarding, it would be hard, probably impossible to convict him for that reason alone.
Further, there is an inherent Fifth Amendment Due Process problem presented when you try a person under a law so vague that it gives persons no notice of what exactly is being banned. Of course we have a lot of criminal laws on the books and among common law crimes that are very vague. Often cruelty to animal laws are vague, to name an example. But in that case, the courts interpret it to only include what us lawyers call mallum in se. That is conduct that is inherently wrong, in contrast to mallum prohibitum, which are items that are only illegal because they are unlawful. So throwing a puppy in a blender (safe, funny link) is inherently wrong, but failing to get your puppy neutered is only wrong if the law requires you to do so. And I think the unstated idea is that if the act is sufficiently wrong in and of itself, then you really don’t need a clear statute to put you on notice that you could get in trouble for ordering it. That certainly seems to be the logic of trying the Nazis at Nuremburg, given that they were tried based on crimes that were not even actually crimes at the time they committed them, a violation of the principle against retroactive criminal laws embodied in the ex post facto clause of the constitution.
All of which brings us back to that moral judgment. Again, it is pure hysteria to pretend that waterboarding is clearly and unambiguously torture. It’s more than a little subjective. And as such, I don’t see how you can call it such clear mallum in se that Bush should be placed in legal jeopardy for doing it. And I haven’t even mentioned that Bush would surely have available to him the justification of defense of others which could potentially relieve him of criminal liability if it was found to be torture or otherwise unlawful.
But on the other hand, if I was Bush’s legal advisor I would tell him flat out: do not ever leave the country. These protections I outlined apply on sporadically in the rest of the world.
[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]
The WaPo and their ilk would forever not give W credit for knowing that water is wet. Now, they want him to stand trial for a decision made with the most sophisticated intelligence, and the advice of the top intel guys, in the known world.
This is really all about deflecting the news of the wipeout on Tuesday. There will be more attempts.
Ed from SFV (c16c43) — 11/4/2010 @ 4:24 pmOT, but the demoncraps are up to their old tricks again. Bag of Uncounted Ballots Found in Bridgeport
http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/elections/2010/races/race-2/Bag-of-Uncounted-Ballots-Found-in-Bridgeport-106727208.html
peedoffamerican (29915f) — 11/4/2010 @ 4:25 pmConsidering the circumstances at the time, I think most presidents would have done the same thing. Bush is just honest enough to admit to it and not make excuses for it.
Terrye (eec529) — 11/4/2010 @ 4:31 pmpoa, you make me want to steal your handle when you post that kind of infuriating story.
Terrye, indeed, Bush’s real mistake seems to be merely being honest with the American people. I always reminds me of the Clinton extraordinary rendition argument.
Bush did the right thing admitting the truth of a heavy issue, and taking responsibility for what decided to do.
As far as the legal definition of torture, under international law, I think it’s informative to rely on the actual interrogation practices of many of the signatories to anti-torture measures.
They go farther than waterboarding.
Loquacious D (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 4:41 pmI hope to have me a president one day that I love more than George Bush but it’s looking grim.
happyfeet (a55ba0) — 11/4/2010 @ 4:41 pmA law prof named Kenneth Anderson did a lengthy piece on international law and made a very strong assertion that some things are wrong–or okay–with international jurists, not to mention our own liberals, depending on whether the POTUS in question is republican or democrat.
Richard Aubrery (59fa91) — 11/4/2010 @ 4:52 pmThe President’s job is first and foremost the protection of all US citizens, not the appropriate Miranda – rights bullshit for terrorists that we’ve been hearing ad nauseum for the past eight years. Was it torture? I don’t know, and I don’t care – this is war, and you don’t play by the Marques du Queensbury rules while your enemies are playing by the Ghengis Khan rules. I always pose this question to my lefty friends about this scenario – if the attacks had been put into action and more innocent Americans would have been killed (a likely outcome), would they have been so forgiving of their Commander – in – Chief not using every available tool at his disposal in order to prevent it? They and their liberal sympathizers in the MSM would have been calling for Bush’s scalp on a totem pole, and they know it.
Dmac (ad2c6a) — 11/4/2010 @ 4:58 pmElection? What election?
LOOK! Bush is a war criminal!
Torquemada (a8a9b2) — 11/4/2010 @ 4:58 pmI’m not sure one way or another about waterboarding.
What I am sure of is that if the anti-war advocates manage to make it impossible to combat terrorism by limited means, that won’t stop the war on terrorism. Rather it will, by ensuring that we suffer more successful attacks, ensure that the American people get mad enough to crumple up all limitations into a small ball and throw them into the nearest ashcan … and all too likely they will follow this by handing out the same treatment to whatever ACLU lawyers etc. are close to hand.
Bush was not remotely like Hitler … or a lot of the Usual Suspects on the Left would be languishing in government controlled cells. Hinder the government’s ability to fight terrorism too far and the People (bless their black flabby hearts) will elect themselves somebody who will make Bush look like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.
But be aware that I’m a horrible person myself; my reaction to the periodic fusses over the display of the Enola Gay at the Air and Space museum is to think that we should put up a banner nearby, written in Japanese, that says “You rape Nanking again, we bomb you again. Any questions?” So my feelings about the war on terror are biased.
(as if anybody’s aren’t)
C. S. P. Schofield (e4bd33) — 11/4/2010 @ 5:09 pmNot at all surprising that you are all a bunch of torture loving bloodthirsty Nazis. That God we have Barcky Obama to return us to our place of respect in the world. If Bush had not waged war on Islam and tortured Muslims, maybe we could coexist more peacefully. And, the Jews.
JD (121437) — 11/4/2010 @ 5:17 pmWe wouldn’t. We have let other Nankings suffer from similar atrocities. Hell, Nanking itself hasn’t been free of them.
Something’s changed in the world, and we largely stand idle in the face of evil. W is a lot like Truman, and that’s why what’s left of Truman’s party thinks he’s a bit like Hitler.
Loquacious D (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 5:18 pmWTH are you doing analyzing a military-intelligence issue under a legal rubric? Y’all want to prosecute these peeps as if they robbed a bank or something. Chopping the toes off of terrorists (if needed) to gain information that could potentially save an American’s life is not only the responsible course of action for the government, it’s the government’s obligation.
quiznilo (642c2c) — 11/4/2010 @ 5:20 pmThe same war crime that Japanese officers where hanged for.
movie
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 5:29 pmw, the Japanese went farther than waterboarding. So when you say they were hanged for waterboarding, that’s a mistake.
They also used waterboarding, it’s true.
Your link made me respect Mitt Romney, which believe me, is impressive.
Loquacious D (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 5:32 pmwritten in Japanese, that says “You rape Nanking again, we bomb you again.
Or what the Japanese did to the Phillipines – my best friend’s wife is direct off the boat from Manila, and she can tell you some stories – lots of stories. Stories involving the torture of her relatives that make waterboarding sound more like wave running. What our soldiers went through in the Bataan Death March was just a faint precursor to what their allies were in for.
Dmac (ad2c6a) — 11/4/2010 @ 5:35 pmEugene Robinson
ColonelHaiku (beb613) — 11/4/2010 @ 5:36 pmcould use generous dose of
water to nostrils
The water torture used by the Japanese in WWII had nothing in common with waterboarding but water. This is a typical lie by the left which tries to commingle different facts that are unrelated. The Japanese technique involved forcing water into the stomach of prisoners.
I assume the lefties who want to try Bush will also try all the military commanders who ordered pilots to undergo SEER training which included waterboarding.
Mike K (d6b02c) — 11/4/2010 @ 5:37 pmSince waterboarding makes a person feel like (and is intended to make them feel like) they are going to drown, which is a mode of death, then according to the US code, waterboarding is torture.
I approve of the use of waterboarding in the limited cases where Bush used it. However, I prefer Alan Dershowitz’s (and John McCain’s) intellectual honesty on the subject, compared to most on the right’s bloviating, self-serving denials.
It is torture … at least under a plain reading of US law. You don’t have to use words to threaten someone with imminent death: Taking away their ability to breath without the terror of water going into their airway suffices.
Christoph (8ec277) — 11/4/2010 @ 5:37 pmand Colonel think that
ColonelHaiku (beb613) — 11/4/2010 @ 5:38 pma clean Eugene worth ten damn
Bob Herberts or Dowds
“w, the Japanese went farther than waterboarding”
So did the US. That happens to be the subject of the film which won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
“Taxi to the Dark Side” – the story of how one prisoner was tortured to death and certainly not an isolated incident.
Hang Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld for war crimes.
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 5:39 pmLet’s waterboard Barry and finally get the answer as to why he can not afford ten dollars for a document that every other citizen of the US has in the house.I would also like to ask him if he blames Bush for Michelle’s pregnancies. He has blamed W for everything else under the sun.
highpockets (d42ce5) — 11/4/2010 @ 5:42 pmThiessen in Courting Disaster, dispatches many of these false claims, everything from ‘walling’ to the Japanese War Criminal Issue
ian cormac (c07a45) — 11/4/2010 @ 5:46 pmHang Bush. That is who William Yelverton, Professor of Plagiarism at MTSU is.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 5:56 pmW, the claim that the CIA waterboarding of KSM et al was the same as the Japanese case was debunked thoroughly years ago.
And yet you repeat this falsehood.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/4/2010 @ 6:42 pm“It is torture … at least under a plain reading of US law.”
No, it isn’t.
And, you need to read the law a little more carefully, before you start sounding off.
Dave Surls (b129a2) — 11/4/2010 @ 6:56 pmThis topic brings out the best in Christoph.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 7:00 pmW,
Unit 731. They went unspeakably past the point of waterboarding.
Get back to us.
Dana (8ba2fb) — 11/4/2010 @ 7:13 pmSounds familiar.
Yes, the reality is clear.
[“w” (ironic name, huh?), I had to fish this out of the spam filter for you. i think the programs react when you link to alot of things, so you might consider laying off of it. I know obviously it is key to your argument, but it might cause your comment to be put off indefinitely.]
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 7:29 pmhttp://www.mcclatchydc.com/2008/06/18/41514/general-who-probed-abu-ghraib.html
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 7:29 pmhttp://action.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/102405/
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 7:30 pmCaterpillar Torture!
Incest Babies!
Obama friend and unrepentant domestic terrorist Bull Ayers, regrets that he “didn’t do enough!”
daleyrocks (940075) — 11/4/2010 @ 7:35 pmW, so then you are telling me that FDR committed war crimes because of the prisoners of war shot by American troops in Sicily during WWII ?
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/4/2010 @ 7:36 pmNot only is William Yelverton a known plagiarist, he also has an obsession with placing his opponents nutsacks in his mouth, and appears to be infatuated with torture.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 7:37 pmJust so we are clear, William Yelverton called for President Bush, VP Cheney, and Rumsfeld to be hung. And we are the crazy violent people.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 7:38 pmw has convinced me. I’m joining him/her in surrendering to the radical islamists. Where is my burkha ? My beard hasn’t gotten very far yet. My callus on my forehead from praying five times a day is growing.
I need to know where he/she left his/her brain so I can stash mine there, too.
Surrender feels so good once you have removed your intelligence and common sense.
Mike K (d6b02c) — 11/4/2010 @ 7:39 pmHas any agent of any government ever been convicted of war crimes for the brutal treatment of an irregular combatant who had knowledge of impending attacks on other forces, and if so, when and who?
Yes, I’m being lazy and not spending hours of research myself. The butchery of Nazi death camps, Japanese occupation of China, Philippines, etc, Killing Fields of Cambodia, Rwanda, Kosovo, and Extremist Islamofascist terrorists (not to be confused with Moslems who aren’t), Saddam and his sons, kill civilians, at times by the millions, for the purpose of primary aggression and intimidation of their enemies, along with being just plain wicked.
Comparing waterboarding by US agents with the who’s who of really mean and nasty people is akin to comparing the execution of a convicted serial killer and the execution of a shoplifter. Some people don’t want any executions, even of pedophile serial killers, but to equate that with the clearly unjust horrid treatment of putting a person guilty of a misdemeanor to death is simply denying the unfortunate realities of this world. Do I think torture of people taken captive by US agents should be routine procedure? Of course not. But a known terrorist who has been involved in actions already worthy of a firing squad is not Aunt Jane who hates to step on a cockroach.
C.S.P. Schofield is correct, as history can document. “Civilization is a thin veneer”, and one can talk about the human rights of butchers when you aren’t the one involved, but when it hits home, expect the response to be inappropriately severe. Illogical responses are followed by more illogical responses. It has been over a hundred years since a significant part of the US population has been face to face with the reality of war in our own neighborhoods. May it not happen again soon.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 11/4/2010 @ 7:39 pmAt FDR’s prep school, Groton, students routinely punished other students — with the full approval of the faculty.
Here, from James MacGregor Burns’s Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox” is a description of two of those punishments:
“Franklin, in short, was a trifle unorthodox, and unorthodoxy at Groton could encounter harsh penalties at the hands of the older boys. One of these penalties was the ‘bootbox’ — being shoved, forcibly, doubled-up into a small locker and left there. Another, also permitted by the faculty, was ‘pumping’ — sixth formers would call out the name of an offender in study period, drag him quailing and shaking to a nearby lavatory, bend him face upward over a trough, and pour basins of water over his face and down his throat until he went through the sensations of drowning.” (p. 11, 1956 paperback edition)
Roosevelt heartily approved of these punishments, by the way, as we know from letters to his parents.
Burns doesn’t seem much bothered by the punishments; the next paragraph is just more on FDR’s time at Groton, and what he achieved there. (Not much, though almost everyone there found him likable.)
As I understand it, these punishments had been introduced by Groton as replacements for punishments that were thought to be too cruel.
Those who believe that waterboarding is torture must conclude that FDR’s Groton routinely tortured some of its students, and that FDR approved of that torture.
Similarly, those who believe that waterboarding is torture must conclude that the SERE classes that our military has been giving for decades to those who might be captured — which routinely include waterboarding — are also torture, though almost no one on the left has shown any sign of caring about them.
Jim Miller (d77521) — 11/4/2010 @ 7:41 pmActually, this is torture:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-KFHunCntE
Even if the chords were, um, borrowed.
Eric Blair (c8876d) — 11/4/2010 @ 7:43 pmMike K., you’ve been subjected to far worse conditions of sleeplessness, being forced to stand, made to go hungry, and being humiliated for sport than those in Gitmo, I’m sure, and you weren’t even allowed to enjoy the weather outside most of the time.
BTW, Gitmo is still there, isn’t it? Funny we don’t hear about it anymore, as if Obama kept his campaign promise to close it. I don’t know where the rule book is on journalistic treatment of D’s and R’s, but I think it needs to be amended.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 11/4/2010 @ 7:46 pmIt also means that progressive savior Obama has reverted to outsourcing our torture to third parties by continuing the Clinton Administration’s rendition program. I thought Obama hated outsourcing American jobs?
daleyrocks (940075) — 11/4/2010 @ 7:47 pmWould I vote for Bush again if he were on the ballot? Damn right I would, and you wouldn’t have to waterboard me to get the answer.
Mike Myers (0e06a9) — 11/4/2010 @ 7:48 pmGuantanamo Bay is and was the most humane prisoner of war camp ever constructed.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/4/2010 @ 7:48 pmI think the rule is ‘it should be safe, legal and rare’ there were only three as I recall, KSM, Zubeydah and Al Nashiri,Muhammed Al Quahtani, part
ian cormac (c07a45) — 11/4/2010 @ 7:48 pmof that quarrelsome clan, was one that endured other procedures
MD in Philly – We still haven’t tried KSM in the civil justice system either. How is that one working out?
daleyrocks (940075) — 11/4/2010 @ 7:50 pmJim Miller, thank you for that info. Maybe those who admire FDR and wish to follow him to the US presidency should have more respect for the time honored traditions.
Eric, if you can show a disco version of that, then it would be torture.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 11/4/2010 @ 7:51 pmAgain, the Japanese went horribly beyond waterboarding. From the link:
More than ten thousand people,[1] from which around 600 every year were provided by the Kempeitai,[2] were subjects of the experimentation conducted by Unit 731.
More than 95 percent of the victims who died in the camp based in Pingfang were Chinese and Korean, including both civilian and military.[3] The remaining 5 percent were South East Asians and Pacific Islanders, at the time colonies of the Empire of Japan, and a small number of the prisoners of war from the Allies of World War II.[4]
According to the 2002 International Symposium on the Crimes of Bacteriological Warfare, the number of people killed by the Imperial Japanese Army germ warfare and human experiments is around 580,000.[5] According to other sources, the use of biological weapons researched in Unit 731’s bioweapons and chemical weapons programs resulted in possibly as many as 200,000 deaths of military personnel and civilians in China.[6]
Dana (8ba2fb) — 11/4/2010 @ 7:54 pmI’m surprised Obama hasn’t altered survival and evasion training to omit the torture resistance segments.
Jim Miller, that was extremely interesting about FDR. We are positively wussified in comparison today; unless you join the Marines or a good Army outfit, there are very few examples of good hard masculinity.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:02 pmDana, I have tried to teach about Unit 731, and been told that doing so was in essence racist. No kidding.
Eric Blair (dcced2) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:02 pmFolks like the Yelverton self-hater would simply say put on their combination Mr. Magoo/electron microscope glasses…and find fault and equivalence to what we have done in our past.
Eric Blair (dcced2) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:03 pmw is totally right. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld should be hanged and it shouldn’t happen behind the walls of a federal prison. It should be done on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol.
It should be publicized weeks ahead of time. It should be done with an invitation to every world leader for attendance.
It should be done so that no other American President should ever again make any decision that would save a life of an American citizen. It should be done to assure the world that the United States is indeed a morally bankrupt country devoid of reason.
It should be done to tear the mask off the face of a nation of blood-thirsty racists intent on world domination. It should be done to prove, finally, that democracy is a sham.
It should be done to appease self-important, ignorant twits who can finally have their blood-lust to punish those who they don’t like politically, finally satisfied.
Did you ever stop to think, though, that perhaps the reason your righteous vengeance has not been carried out already may be based on something more than which side won an election or whether your view of justice might have a counter-weight as valid as your own?
Have you ever stopped to think that what you are essentially saying is: “I’m right and I have the bodies to prove it.”
That’s what you base your sense of justice upon? How is that sense of justice morally superior to those you oppose?
w you, quite seriously, represent a brand of deep-thinker well known in history*.
Ag80 (743fd1) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:05 pmDana – anytime I see a moon bat make that claim, it is a clear signal that they are fundamentally dishonest, or pig ignorant. Other than both having the name water board attached to them, their similarities end there.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:05 pmEric Blair,
That’s very interesting. Such a hideous piece of history but one that must not be pushed under the rug any more than the Holocaust should.
So tell me, is it perfectly acceptable to teach about Abu Graib because clearly Americans are racist for they did?
Dana (8ba2fb) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:07 pmYes, Dana, it is perfectly permissible on campus to do that. Basically, anything criticizing this nation is great on campus. Anything criticizing a nation in opposition to this one is considered racist in some fashion.
In the case in question, I was told that the only way I could teach about Unit 731 was in the context of atrocities committed by Western countries. The Tuskegee Experiment was used as a good example.
When I pointed out the difference in body count, you can imagine that I was not popular. Oh well.
Eric Blair (dcced2) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:11 pmno, they should rewrite the textbooks and make Joe McCarthy a hero, MLK a troublemaker, and Ronald Reagan a saint. They need to also include the fraud of evolution, and AGW.
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:13 pmUnit 731: “After infecting him, the researchers decided to cut him open to see what the disease does to a man’s inside. I cut him open from the chest to the stomach and he screamed terribly and his face was all twisted in agony. made this unimaginable sound, he was screaming so horribly. This was all in a day’s work for the surgeons, but it really left an impression on me because it was my first time.”
In light of this and certainly not to minimize the awfulness of water boarding almost seems like chump change.
Dana (8ba2fb) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:16 pmEh. “In light of this and certainly not to minimize the awfulness of water boarding, it almost seems like chump change.”
Dana (8ba2fb) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:18 pm?
We’re talking about Bush admitting to waterboarding. Evolution? Even Palin agrees that evolution is a mechanism in biology.
the only fraud with evolution is how the left pretends the religious are idiots because they don’t conflate genetics with the ultimate point of creation.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:19 pmProfessor Yelverton, don’t you have some chords to steal? Seriously, dude, writing your nonsense in juxtaposition to the horrific events Dana and I are discussing simply shows that you lack the ethical center you believe you have.
Go away for while. We are talking about people who were tortured to death.
Play your partisan nonsense games on another thread.
Speaking of McCarthy: have you no shame?
I didn’t think so.
Eric Blair (dcced2) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:20 pmEric Blair,
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:25 pmTell us about your personal relationship with Christ and how it affects your judgement.
I like it when wee Willie the cat serenader poses as a woman.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:25 pmw, still no answer on whether or not FDR was a war criminal?
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:26 pmEric’s got a better response than me. Unit 731 was quite a surprise to me (I was an adult and in Korea, and learned about this from a Korean). They don’t teach that topic, or Nanking, and I have no idea why. The US’s use of atomic weapons shouldn’t be trivialized by a misunderstanding of what Japan was then.
Chortling that this is some kind of right wing revisionist teaching akin to demonizing MLK is awful, W.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:26 pmThings effect judgement, no? Some academic you are, Zamfir.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:27 pmw:
No, they should tell the truth.
They should say that Joe McCarthy was an alcoholic war veteran who accused many people, some innocent and some guilty, of being Communist sympathizers. They should say his actions were morally bankrupt and he died at a young age because of his excesses.
They should say that MLK was a flawed man with grand ideas that united a nation to repeal bad laws and implement new ones to establish justice for fellow humans. They should say he paid the price for his beliefs with his life, but his legacy remains intact.
They should say that science is science and to the best of our knowledge, evolution is a sound theory, unbroken.
And they should say that AGW is about the best we can come up with right now, but preserving the earth and its resources is the right thing to do, regardless.
So, now, maybe we can go to mamby-pampy land and maybe find you some sort of self-confidence, you jack-wagon.
Ag80 (743fd1) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:27 pmAg80, an R.Lee Ermey quote for the win!
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:28 pmProfessor Yelverton, your own comments say everything about your own judgement. And you callousness and disregard not just for truth, but decency—all in the name of politics. Multiple times you have posted snotty comments of superiority after which you have been skooled on your own ignorance.
And I do mean ignorance.
That is just a game. I understand that. But when confronted with genuine images of torture and death, your response is to change the subject or make jokes or troll.
What a thoroughly disgusting human being you are. Look at yourself in the mirror. Take a good look. And think how you would respond, would a political opponent of yours act…well, just like you have been.
You would feel as disgusted as I do.
Mend your ways, small man.
Eric Blair (dcced2) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:30 pmBush, the christian president. Torturer and murdered of children.
Killed
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:31 pmSheesh, the incoherent drooling continues.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:32 pmSuch a small man. So angry. And so empty inside.
Disgusting.
Eric Blair (dcced2) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:32 pmmurderer – typo
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:33 pmW, clearly as someone on the left, when you are confronted with the pure evil of another non-white, non-American people treating fellow humans with all the depravity and vile possible in this life, are you able to allow yourself to look it squarely in the eye and recognize that that evil far surpasses what we have seen to have occurred at Abu Graib? Are you permitted that level of honesty which might possibly cause you to forsake your narrative?
Dana (8ba2fb) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:33 pmw’s hero Pol Pot whacks everyone who looks like w and then some.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:34 pmw, are you even reading any of the responses? You reply to people directly until you say something nasty… then you blindly insert random text like you’re ashamed to see the aftermath.
Does that suggest you feel guilt?
You’re disregarding something genuinely horrible. And you’re posting pictures of dead Iraqi children? Bush saved thousands of children. Saddam was an efficient destroyer of life.
You’d be posting pictures of the casualties of WWII if Bush had led then.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:35 pmYou know Vogon poetry is less painful, than his insipid musings
ian cormac (c07a45) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:35 pmyea, what Bush did to those people was disgusting. Not to mention what he did to us. And he gets a pass.
Sorry for the reality check.
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:35 pmAnd your solution is to kill him. So much for liberalism, or Christianity for that matter.
I hope it works out for you.
Since no one asked.
*Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre.
That’s what we’re dealing with here with folks, so, really, what’s the point?
Ag80 (743fd1) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:36 pmEric Blair – I found a video of Yelverton and son in happier times.
daleyrocks (940075) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:37 pmHow many Americans are this angry at Bush? At least a few million. They are completely insulated from reality, and when you try to have a dialogue about the world’s real horrors, even in a respectful way, you get “BUSH KILLED THIS CHILD!”
Did Truman get this treatment?
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:37 pmIsn’t that slander, Willie the racist lying plagiarizing hilljack? Lol. Yelverton is not responding well to the thumping the leftists took on Tuesday.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:37 pmw, there is no reality to anything you write.
And by the way, the CBO tally of the war costs comes about even with Obama’s failed pork-filled “stimulus”, so you fail.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:38 pmWe’re aware the war cost money and lives. Believe me, everyone here knows that. We accepted war for a reason (I don’t even know that all of us did agree to it).
Your high horse? It’s a load of crap. You’re the one denying reality here.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:38 pmYelverton is calling for the murder of someone he claims to be a murderer.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:39 pmw – Tell us about your relationship with mind altering substances and how they have affected your judgment.
daleyrocks (940075) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:40 pmPol Pot, Idi Amin, Mao, Mugabe, Khmer Rouge, Rwanda (Hutus/Tsusis), Hitler, etc., etc.
Tell me the horror wreaked upon untold millions by this rogues gallery of evil turns your stomach like no other. I would like to know if you are even capable of a semblance of rational thought. So far it’s not looking hopeful.
Dana (8ba2fb) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:42 pmBush didn’t need to slaughter 100,000 people to hang Saddam. He also didn’t need to let bin Laden escape due to incompetence. And, he didn’t need to take a month long vacation after being warned 40 times in summer of ’01 – very specifically of an impending al Qaeda attack.
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:43 pm“yea, what Bush did to those people was disgusting.”
w – ? Congress approved both wars you ignorant git. If you are going to blame casualties of war on politicians, spread it around to those who approved it, mental midget.
daleyrocks (940075) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:43 pmw also seems unaware of the fact that Obama’s most recent year budgeted supplementals for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars has been greater than any single year of such during the Bush administration.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:43 pmI haven’t read all the comments but I can say with certainty that if the USA (i.e. “the West”) was under attack by persons that would behead innocents to further a “religion”, waterboarding would be an early step. I’ll take my chances with St. Peter.
timp (d01845) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:44 pmw, it is a lie to claim that George W. Bush was “very specifically” warned of an Al Qaeda attack.
And quoting debunked Lancet numbers, which even the Lancet now disowns, reinforces your delusional state.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:45 pm“very specifically of an impending al Qaeda attack.”
w – Please produce the warning of a specific Al Qaeda attack and then compare it to the ones Clinton received, hack.
daleyrocks (940075) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:45 pmThat is a lie lie lie lie lie lie lie lie that Bush murdered 100,000 people. An aggressive lie. As is the let him escape and vacation in light of 40 warnings. The BDS Is end stage in this one.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:46 pm“Bush didn’t need to slaughter 100,000 people to hang Saddam.”
w – What is your military experience Yelverton? How many people did he need to slaughter?
The 100,000 is a complete exaggeration.
daleyrocks (940075) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:47 pmAnti Terrorism Director Richard Clarke repeatedly asked for a meeting with Bush on the bin Laden threat but was denied.
The PDB Bush received a month before 9/11 was entitled “bin Laden determined to strike in US” mentioned specifically:
“a Bin Laden cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks”
“Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft”
“patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.”
“Bin Laden implied in U.S. television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef”
The amazing thing is that Tenet warned Bush 40 times. Yes, count them – 40 times bin Laden was mention in Presidential Daily Brief’s from March 23-Sept 10, 01. For example:
April 20, ’01 briefing entitled: “Bin Ladin planning multiple operations.”
May 16 – “Bin Ladin supporters were planning an attack in the United States using high explosives.”
May 17 – “UBL: Operation Planned in U.S.”
June 22 – “intelligence suggesting a possible al Qaeda suicide attack on a U.S.target.”
A terrorist threat advisory distributed in late June indicated a high probability of near-term “spectacular” terrorist attacks resulting in numerous casualties. Other reports’ titles warned,”Bin Ladin Attacks May be Imminent” and “Bin Ladin and Associates Making Near-Term Threats.”
June 25 – Clarke warned Rice and Hadley that six separate intelligence reports showed al Qaeda personnel warning of a pending attack.
June 28 – Clarke wrote Rice that the pattern of al Qaeda activity indicating attack planning over the past six weeks “had reached a crescendo.” “A series of new reports continue to convince me and analysts at State, CIA, DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency], and NSA that a major terrorist attack or series of attacks is likely…”
July 5 – CIA briefed Attorney General Ashcroft on the al Qaeda threat, warning that a significant terrorist attack was imminent. Ashcroft was told that preparations for multiple attacks were in late stages or already complete and that little additional warning could be expected.
July 23, the lead item for Counterterrorism Security Group discussion was the al Qaeda threat,and it included mention of suspected terrorist travel to the United States. Tenet told Bush that “the system was blinking red.” By late July, Tenet said, it could not “get any worse.”
What did our commander in chief do after receiving these dire warnings for months? He went on vacation – for a month.
So… the next time you hear wingnuts blaming Clinton for 9/11, review a little history. I
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:48 pmMD in Philly and Dustin – You are welcome. I’ve blogged about it a couple of times, and I suppose that I should do so again.
Jim Miller (d77521) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:48 pmHe’s far more upset today than he was before election day.
His slurs are absolutely to the max. He’s absolutely asserting that Bush is akin to a Hitler level monster with his ‘slaughter of 100,000’ comment.
He’s suffering more today than even those who have to read his awful thoughts, just realizing the Tea Party owns the next several elections.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:49 pmMD, I have been through worse.
Mike K., you’ve been subjected to far worse conditions of sleeplessness, being forced to stand, made to go hungry, and being humiliated for sport
I went through Fiji Hell Week in 1957 before the pussies took over. We had plenty of raw onions to eat (vitamin C, you know) and the worst of it was having to stand blindfolded listening to Schoenberg’s “Transfigured Night” at half speed. That’s how we slept standing up. After Schoenberg at half speed, waterboarding would be a vacation.
Mike K (d6b02c) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:51 pmThe 100, 000 dead Iraqis is LOW estimate… it the number of DOCUMENTED CIVILIAN deaths. The number is probably at least double that. So, Mr Daleyrocks, would it make you feel better about your christian president to know that only say….only 70,000 were slaughtered?
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:51 pmw, more lies on your part. None of that was anything but rehashed decade old intel reports.
You even quote stuff that shows the intel was from many years before.
And Clarke’s claims all disappeared when he was under oath before the 9/11 Commission.
Why do you write so many falsehoods?
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:51 pmOperation planned in US ?!?!ZOMFG !!!!! Bin Laden planning attack in US ?!?!?!?! Surely, you jest. You really are an idiot, aren’t you?
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:51 pmThe August 2001 PDB actually had less information, than the one issued in December 1998, that mentioned
ian cormac (c07a45) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:51 pmthe future late Mohammed Atef and Seyf al Adel, there was no ‘Brooklyn Cell’ the information from
the Phoenix memo, never made it into the report, yet the President chose to move on Kosovo that year, ironically an area where AQ officials did
have local contacts
Jim, thanks for mentioning you have a blog. It looks excellent and I wonder how I’ve missed it up to now. Ordinarily I wouldn’t mention it here, but the thread is totally jacked to hell and back anyway.
Maybe we need a Bush thread every day in order to flypaper up all the trolls?
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:52 pmw, you need to get together with the Lancet editorial board. You have new information for them.
Are you one of the stoners that was interviewed at the Comedy Channel rally last weekend ? Just asking, You sound familiar.
Mike K (d6b02c) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:53 pmWhat I’ve written is documented.
Your responses have been denial, disparagement, attack the messanger, and rationalize.
Exactly what I’d expect from authoritarian conservatives
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:53 pmIt takes some strong dope to repeat fraudulent Democratic attacks on George W. Bush that were debunked years ago by bipartisan intelligence committee and 9/11 Commission reports.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:54 pmw, no what you have written are frauds. The Lancet has disowned the fraudulent numbers you quote.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:54 pmIt can’t be both an estimate and an actual documented count. It’s actually an estimate, though. But you’re wrong even on what it’s an estimate *of*.
Saddam’s rule = 2 million deaths when you add wars and avoidable famines and biological weapon attacks on his own citizens.
We had to stop it with warfare.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:55 pm“Anti Terrorism Director Richard Clarke repeatedly asked for a meeting with Bush on the bin Laden threat but was denied.”
w – So are you suggesting that none of Clarke’s concern’s ever reached Bush? Clarke never bothered to talk to other cabinet members? Did he shirk his duty? What is your point?
daleyrocks (940075) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:55 pmThat is not a low estimate, and does not reflect what you claim. It certainly does not count the number of people killed by Muslim extremists. But you could not care less. You are aggressively ignorant and dishonest and delusional and hackneyed and obtuse and self unaware and a douche nozzle. That is all.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:57 pmNot to mention that Clarke was not “Anti Terrorism Director” in the Bush administration … or any administration for that matter.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:58 pm“What I’ve written is documented.”
w – What is documented is that the PDB a month before 9/11 was no more specific as to the individual type or location of threat than many Clinton received, which you have not presented here for comparison. I hope you don’t run out of lotion tonight.
daleyrocks (940075) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:58 pmWillie has facts. You are all science deniers and probably jesuslanders.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 8:59 pmAug 6 PDB:
“patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings ”
“Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft”
9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey will later state to CNN,“[B]y the way, there’s a credible case that the president’s own negligence prior to 9/11 at least in part contributed to the disaster in the first place.… [I]n the summer of 2001, the government ignored repeated warnings by the CIA, ignored, and didn’t do anything to harden our border security, didn’t do anything to harden airport country, didn’t do anything to engage local law enforcement, didn’t do anything to round up INS and consular offices and say we have to shut this down, and didn’t warn the American people. The famous presidential daily briefing on August 6, we say in the report that the briefing officers believed that there was a considerable sense of urgency and it was current. So there was a case to be made that wasn’t made.… The president says, if I had only known that 19 Islamic men would come into the United States of America and on the morning of 11 September hijack four American aircraft, fly two into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon, and one into an unknown Pennsylvania that crashed in Shanksville, I would have moved heaven and earth. That’s what he said. Mr. President, you don’t need to know that. This is an Islamic Jihadist movement that has been organized since the early 1990s, declared war on the United States twice, in ‘96 and ‘98. You knew they were in the United States. You were warned by the CIA. You knew in July they were inside the United States. You were told again by briefing officers in August that it was a dire threat. And what did you do? Nothing, so far as we could see on the 9/11 Commission.” [CNN, 11/8/2004]
No … he went on vacation… for a month, then later slaughtered so Iraqis.
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:00 pmYou post a link, often to debunked things, or just nothing factual at all, and then rush to the next horrible accusation.
Zero times have you bothered to debate the accuracy. And you call *us* the authoritarians? Of course you’re being disparaged. Your argument is of little worth if it’s just to restate your conclusion 100 times without reasoning.
This is the perfect thread for a Bush hater to have a rationale discussion about Bush’s decisions.
You offer absolutely nothing like that. The only person here who attempted a reasonable attack was Cristoph, loathe I may be to admit it because he’s a jerk.
Look at his comment. A premise. Another premise. An overview of his logic. And his conclusion.
You’re just saying “conclusion conclusion conclusion” Almost all of it being extreme crap rejected by society. And you complain about our tone? Are you out of your mind? Is this really more interesting to you than working through a debate?
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:00 pm“Your responses have been denial, disparagement, attack the messanger, and rationalize.”
w – This is me laughing. It’s tough to show that over the internet, sorry.
daleyrocks (940075) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:01 pmWillie,
Obama lied, the economy died…
Tell us all about it.
Bob Reed (5f2db5) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:01 pmthe worst of it was having to stand blindfolded listening to Schoenberg’s “Transfigured Night” at half speed.
Verklarte Nacht is a wonderful piece. If it was one of his later twelve tone pieces I would agree with you. Or Boulez. Le Marteau sans Maitre would serve the purpose nicely.
kishnevi (c8ebbd) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:02 pm“What I’ve written is documented.”*
Hey, I like themes, asterisks are my theme for the night.
Ag80 (743fd1) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:03 pmw, there is nothing in the intel briefing that constituted any warning upon which anyone, including George W. Bush could act.
Meanwhile, Michael Scheuer blames Clarke’s timidity in preventing his unit from getting Bin Laden long before August 2001. Clarke’s been polishing his own apple and stupid clowns you like have been lapping it up, for years.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:04 pmHere is a question no leftist will ever answer. Let’s assume all of your claims were actionable. What could President Bush have done that would not have made your head explode?
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:05 pmRationalization. Make Saddam even more evil than he was (600,000 killed over 24 years, not 2 million). Make Bush’s war seem less deady and less expensive and more necessary that it actually was…. ahhh feel better now?
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:06 pm8,000,000+ Americans lost their jobs on Obama’s watch, and Barcky went … golfing, 50+ times.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:06 pmJD, nope not a thing. That’s the hypocrisy of the brain-lesion crowd.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:06 pmJD
This.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (fb9e90) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:08 pmOK, lets talk jobs…
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:08 pmw obsolete article, more jobs were later lost during the two years of Obama’s administration.
Loser.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:10 pmBut it would have actually sounded like this.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (fb9e90) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:10 pmIt’s pretty amusing that W is taking for gospel Kerrey’s opinion in one case, but doesn’t appear to agree with Kerrey’s far more loudly and frequently expressed opinion on the need to go to war in Iraq and see it through to a victory.
That’s almost like he’s cherry picking, and doesn’t really consider Kerrey’s opinions to be very powerful.
BTW, context helps a bit:
In other words, Kerrey’s referencing the Clinton administration’s watch, but notes that Bush did not do whatever extreme measure would have thwarted 9/11.
There’s a reason Clinton’s man Berger, stuff documents down his pants and destroyed them.
But what could Bush do? The plan was in place before he took office. Anything extreme enough to thwart as vague a threat as Kerrey is referencing would have been hugely unpopular. We simply didn’t understand the threat at that time beyond the notion jihadists were among the malefactors out there. We had an extremely false sense of security on 9/10.
Bush included in those who didn’t appreciate the threat. Kerrey included. And Clinton included. Blaming Bush especially is just plain disgusting. It’s an attempt to score a political point that should be leveled at Bill Clinton just as much, if not more.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:11 pmOver 8,000,00o people do not have jobs today that did when your personal Jesus took office. That is a fact. And that number is growing. Despite 9/11 and the housing crisis, Bush had a net 3,000,000+ jobs. Barcky has 11,000,000+ to go just to get even with Bush.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:11 pmI thought we were talking jobs?
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:12 pmw, all of those “gains” were later revised downward. And lost during the summer.
Why do you use obsolete numbers? For fraudulent purposes obviously.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:14 pmWell, w, do something about it.
I mean, it’s pretty easy to keep posting here. Hell, look at me. It’s pretty damn easy.
I could go over to Kos and have fun for a few minutes before I’m banned.
If this is so important to you, if the weight of the world demands your actions, do something besides posting on a blog.
What are you waiting for? Bush needs to be hanged. By god, why are you not out there making sure it happens? Petition, call your Congressman, protest, quit your job and go lay on graves. Carry signs with Bush’s face with a Hitler mustache.
Run for office. Do something that matters.
Posting links may feel good, but come on it’s not very satisfying for the soul, is it?
Crybaby.
Ag80 (743fd1) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:14 pmBelow is the PDB Willie. Prove the new, specific, actionable, intelligence in there that supports your claims or was more threatening than any Clinton received (you still have not responded on that point).
Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US
Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Bin Ladin since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Ladin implied in US television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and “bring the fighting to America.”
After US missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, Bin Ladin told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a [———–] service.
An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told an [——] service at the same time that Bin Ladin was planning to exploit the operative’s access to the US to mount a terrorist strike.
The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of Bin Ladin’s first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the US. Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that Bin Ladin lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own US attack.
Ressam says Bin Ladin was aware of the Los Angeles operation.
Although Bin Ladin has not succeeded, his attacks against the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Ladin associates surveilled our Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planing the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.
Al-Qa’ida members—including some who are US citizens—have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks. Two al-Qa’ida members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our Embassies in East Africa were US citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.
A clandestine source said in 1998 that a Bin Ladin cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.
We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a [————–] service in 1998 saying that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of “Blind Shaykh” ‘Umar ‘Abd al-Rahman and other US-held extremists.
Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.
The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.
For the President Only
daleyrocks (940075) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:14 pm6 August 2001 [———] Declassified and Approved
for Release, 10 April 2004
Amen, Brother Bradley. William Yelverton, Professor of Plagiarism will never answer that question. Ever. Because there is nothing Bush could have done prior to 9/1 that would not have caused them to go frothy at the mouth, even mores than they eventually went. Can you imagine if he shut down all air travel? Cordoned off NYC. Actively investigate all immigrants from the Middle East? Prior to 9/11.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:15 pmHere’s more jobs not saved.
SAN FRANCISCO — Solyndra, a Silicon Valley solar-panel maker that won half a billion dollars in federal aid to build a state-of-the-art robotic factory, plans to announce on Wednesday that it will shut down an older plant and lay off workers.
The cost-cutting move, which will reduce the company’s previously announced production capacity, is a sign of the notable shift in the prospects for cutting-edge American solar companies, which now face intense price competition from Chinese manufacturers that use more established photovoltaic technologies.
Just seven weeks ago, Solyndra opened Fab 2, a $733 million factory in Fremont, Calif., to make its high-tech solar panels. The new plant was supposed to be the first phase of a rapid expansion of the company.
H/t to John and Ken
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (fb9e90) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:15 pmMeanwhile, thanks to Obama wages fall during 2009.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:16 pmThank you. Bush had thousands of warnings. I wish he could have thwarted 9/11, but realistically? That’s probably just crazy. Sandy Berger hid evidence that Clinton could have thwarted it, but even then, scoring political points with blame for this event makes my stomach turn.
Had Bush implemented modern airport and aircraft security, such that 9/11 could have been prevented, with the terror watch lists and hardened doors and far more air marshals, Bob Kerrey would have demanded his impeachment.
Just the border security demand makes me angry. If you try to do that, the DOJ will arrest you.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:16 pmThis is the way history will remember this year. You can’t get any more accurate than this.
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:16 pmObama dumps a trillion dollars into a failed pork-laden “stimulus” and wages fall.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:18 pmWow, w loses one argument pretty bad, only to jump on another, only to do it again.
I’ve never said this before, and I know I’m among the worst for being baited by trolls. I think w should be moderated if he can’t stay on topic.
This is the perfect thread for a liberal to make his case against Bush. And W just can’t do it. He has to scream instead.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:18 pmZOMFGBBQXYZ !!!! Unemployment is expected to rise again for OCT, and he is posting links to numbers that have already been revised downward?
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:18 pmGore won in 2000. Bush was an illegitimate President!!!!!!11ty!!!!!
daleyrocks (940075) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:18 pmBin Laden escaped because of Richard Clarke.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:19 pmNow I note that my claims are silly, but notice that they are better supported than w’s claims.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:20 pmBin Laden could have been greased before the year 2000, willie.
I can tell you from the inside though, that Mr. Clinton’s strikes on the training camps in Afghanistan and the Sudanese aspirin factory were some wag-the-dog B.S. to distract from his perjury and penile problems at the time.
See Willie, he ordered the strikes virtually overnight, without bothering with any pesky precision target locating or any of that; c’mon, all liberals know that the military is like a daisy red-rider popgun-just point and pull the trigger…
I saw some of the BDA from those raids willie. They were judged to be barely 50% effective in Afghanistan and in Sudan, well, you know…
So quit your whining, “BOOOOOOOOOOOOSH! should have got Bin Laden before 9/11. ‘Cuz willie, Clinton should have got hin long before that. But he was, like, busy.
And re:Iraqi civilain deaths? All civilian deaths are a shame willie, but US forces minimalize collateral damage more than any other force in world history. Saddam used his people as shield, like the Palestinians, Syrians, and Iranians; so the blood of their deaths is on their leaders hands, not the US.
Bob Reed (5f2db5) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:20 pmRACISTS !!!!!!!!!!! Go bugger your cat or serenade some veggie paelaa. Plagiarize some soros leftist idiocy. Quit embarrassing yourself.
Do you think it is appropriate to call for the murder of people, William Yelverton? When you finally sober up, will you regret that?
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:20 pmNo Professor Yelverton. We were talking about trolls. You, specifically. Because your goal was to change the subject. Repeatedly. And I have to say that, like daley, I laughed at loud when you actually had the chutzpah to write:
How you wrote the above without realizing it is practically a textbook definition of your own unpleasant and dishonest behavior is amazing. It’s like you don’t read your own posts. But the thing is, trolls like you don’t read your own posts.
And I continue to believe that you are small, bitter, and nasty in your very soul. Nothing new about that, as folks who read up on your various posts would learn quickly.
You may think you are a great guy. But I think you know the truth.
Eric Blair (dcced2) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:21 pmActually, JD, it’s worse than that.
W did do what it took to prevent the other 9.11… the one in Los Angeles. That’s what the Waterboarding was about, after all.
He stopped it, and he’s damned. He failed to stop it, and he’s damned.
In reality, he was just a man trying to do a very hard job, and damned no matter what he did because the left cannot forgive him for stopping Gore trying to steal Florida. They just never stopped the hatred. He was getting eggs thrown at him before he was even inaugurated in 2001. He was booed as he departed. The entire time, he held he head up and faced his good bad and grim days of hard work.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:22 pmw:
That’s it? That’s the whole sum of your argument?
Oh well, it’s late on a Thursday and I have to go to work tomorrow. What a waste of time.
Ag80 (743fd1) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:22 pmI don’t understand why the evils of Imperial Japan in WWII do not get the same exposure and condemnation of Nazi Germany, nor why the Holocaust is the main crime attributed to the Nazis when overall more non-Jews were murdered than Jews. I’ve always thought that pointing out how many Jews and non-Jews both were killed by Hitler would point out the unity of people and bring more of a shared commitment against such crimes in the future. Of course, there really hasn’t been much of a commitment to prevent such crimes since then. The majority of the world continues to appease evil and deny the problem as long as possible, vilifying the Churchills as they try to give the early warning.
w, a few things
1) I don’t know many, if any, here that think Clinton was directly responsible for 9/11. What I do hold Clinton guilty of is having Sandy Burgler break the law to cover-up something during Clinton, and deflect blame on Bush instead of being American and man enough to shoulder his part of the blame.
2) I trust Richard “Rice had never heard of Al Queda before I told her, even though she spoke about them on the radio as is documented before I had the opportunity to tell her” Clarke about as much as I trust the one who can make the ocean levels return to their proper levels.
3) I love it when people complain about Bush not doing anything to prevent 9/11- what did they want him to do, do a first attack against Afghanistan? Saudi Arabia? All Muslim countries? Declare martial law and introduce radical security measures throughout the country? Ask the operator to put a call through to bin Laden so he could ask what was planned? Have a covert operation or Predator drone take him out? And these are the same people who complain that Bush took away our rights after 9/11. Always complaining, whether Bush did too little or too much, he always did it wrong, and if the one does the same things, that’s different, because the one is a nice compassionate liberal and Bush was a mean children-go-to-bed-hungry conservative.
4) Can you give me an example of what I asked at 34?
Comment by Ag80- I wondered, but hadn’t asked. Seems fitting.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:25 pmDouchebag, fy education. You might want to read the account of someone with first hand knowledge….
”
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:27 pmCIA field commander for the agency’s Jawbreaker team at Tora Bora, Gary Berntsen, says he and other U.S. commanders did know that bin Laden was among the hundreds of fleeing Qaeda and Taliban members. Berntsen says he had definitive intelligence that bin Laden was holed up at Tora Bora—intelligence operatives had tracked him—and could have been caught. “He was there,” Berntsen tells NEWSWEEK.”
w has proven that George W. Bush’s personal command of the US troops in the highlands of Afghanistan and his front-line leadership on the slopes of Tora Bora was a failure.
Meanwhile, Bin Laden was only alive that long because of Richard Clarke.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:30 pmw – No need to get snippy. Everybody has a story. John Ketty was there too. He got shot at and his helicopter was forced down.
daleyrocks (940075) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:30 pmJD, you should be proud.
A Song to William Yelverton
Willie, The Racist Hilljack (Inspired by JD and Puff the Magic Dragon)
Willie the racist hill jack – lives in a holler.
With lutes and cats and patchouli hats and tubs of pai – ey – ah.
Musician is his moniker – at a fourth rate Tennessee school
Hikes by lakes and brownie bakes conceal a link crazed tool.
Willie hates Republicans – and conservatives to boot.
He thinks they’re crazed and should be tazed, and burned with a hemp rope loop.
Religious folks are morons – and libertines are cruel.
He’d like to stamp them to a camp with barracks, guards and gruel.
(Oh)
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (fb9e90) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:31 pm[chorus] . . .
Wasn’t there an instance where Osama could have been
ian cormac (c07a45) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:31 pmtaken out, but there was a prince from the UAE fox hunting in Afghanistan
Bush Admin fail.
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:32 pmBy the way, w, Bentsen was only at Tora Bora at all because of George W. Bush’s leadership.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:32 pmw, they bombed Tora Bora because of that information, you nutcase.
Answer MD in Philly. He took the time to thoughtfully reply to you.
In particular, answer his point 3. The same people bashing Bush for measures post 9/11 insist Bush should have done far, far more than that before 9/11. How does this work?
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:32 pmWillie,
If Clinton hadn’t abruptly ordered the strike overnight, needing to wag the dog and all, and precisely targeted the building they might have all been destroyed intstead of random craters being created in the Afghan wilderness…
Then Osama and a whole lot of his jihadist buddies wouldn’t have been running away because chances are they wouldn’t have been able to run.
Of course we all know you were there, right willie? Undercover as a classical guitarist no doubt…
‘Cuz Osama luvs him some flamenco…
Bob Reed (5f2db5) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:34 pmBrother Bradley – that is both beautiful, hysterical, and kind of sad.
MD – I asked the yelverton a similar question, one that he will continue to studiously ignore.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:34 pmCriticisms of the operation at Tora Bora ignore the fact that any operation that used more US troops would have required many more months to deploy. There wasn’t a “better” plan to get Bin Laden captured that George W. Bush foiled.
Moronhood, that’s all w has.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:35 pm“The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him.”- G.W. Bush, 9/13/01
Six months after 9/11….
“So I don’t know where he [bin Laden] is. You know, I just don’t spend that much time on him. … I truly am not that concerned about him.
– G.W. Bush, 3/13/02: White House Press Conference
So, lets go bomb some Iraqis and forget about bin Laden.
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:36 pmIn #156 “building” shoud be plural…
Bob Reed (5f2db5) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:37 pmw, Bin Laden is free because of Richard Clarke.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:39 pmBentsen was only at Tora Bora at all because of George W. Bush’s leadership.
Berntsen asked for support at Tora Bora and was denied.
” He also claims that bin Laden could have been captured if United States Central Command had committed the troops that Berntsen had requested. Former CIA officer Gary Schroen concurs with this view[4] and Pentagon documents are suggestive.[5]”
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:40 pmGeorge bush personally denied that request. You are such a freaking tool, yelverton. So much of what you know, simply isn’t so.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:41 pmFrom now on, I would request that you jam a vuvuzela up your squeakhole, so we can hear you coming.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:43 pmAnd FDR was personally responsible for the debacle at Kasserine Pass.
You are a moron, w.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:43 pmFY education in reality…
Bush Administration’s First Memo on al-Qaeda Declassified
January 25, 2001 Richard Clarke Memo: “We urgently need . . . a Principals level review on the al Qida network.” Also attached to the original Clarke memo are two Clinton-era documents relating to al-Qaeda. The first, “Tab A December 2000 Paper: Strategy for Eliminating the Threat from the Jihadist Networks of al-Qida: Status and Prospects,”
The Bush transition teams IGNORED Richard Clarke and the CLinton memos warning of al Qaida
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB147/index.htm
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:44 pmDustin, JD, maybe we should just have some nice conversation among ourselves. We actually listen to valid points and give responses. But, we will need to do it another time, as my last point of the night is I need to go to bed. Carry on.
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:44 pmWillie, you’re entitled to your opinion, of course, but not your own set of facts.
Copypasta from an Amazon advertisement page does not confer metaphysical certitude.
Bob Reed (5f2db5) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:45 pmIt’s interesting to consider what W is really thinking.
He thinks bush 43 and Osama Bin Laden are cohorts. He doesn’t think Bush ignored 9/11… he thinks he let it happen ‘on purpose’.
He doesn’t think Tora Bora was a screw up… he thinks it was a dog and pony show to help OBL out of a bind.
He’s so angry with us because he is afraid of Republicans in the most specific and paranoid way. He’s sick, not evil. He thinks he’s a cornered animal and is wasting his life freaking out about a retired baseball fan.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:48 pmWhat exactly, what specifically, would William Yelverton have approved of prior to 9/11. What actions would you have taken?
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:48 pmNot my facts, this is US National Archives.
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:48 pmI’s called ‘what really happened’
Night, MD. I sorely wish I could respond to trolls with your sobriety.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:48 pmBush ignored warnings on al Qaeda from Clarke and Clinton.
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:50 pmWillie the cat whisperer has facts people. Facts and logic. Facts and logic and veggie paella. Facts and logic and veggie paella and midget genes.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:51 pmWhat, specifically, would you have done, yellie? What piece of information was actionable? What could Bush have done that you would have approved of?
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:52 pmWhat do documented facts mean to the mind of a wingnut?
Ask Krauthammer…
This is also related the the wingnut abandonment of rationality, critical thinking, and belief in the supernatural …. they call” faith.” When someone they revere has faith …. GWB, torture, murder, and all manner of crimes to humanity and incompetence can be overlooked and effectively rationalized. That is the wingnut mind.
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:57 pmIt seems like William yelverton, the human output generator, is just going through his list of bookmarks and spamming links. It has not responded directly to one single response. Not one.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:59 pmJD,
BUSH PDB – Aug 6…
– “patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings ”
– “Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft”
WTF do you think?
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:59 pmJD, it probably comforts truthers to think the US Government has some perfect ability to know and deal with everything.
Something like the JFK assasination or the 9/11 massacre can’t happen without the government wanting it to happen.
Bush could have told his ‘top men’ to ‘deal with it’. Ninjas would have cartwheeled out of helos, and all the bad guys would have been arrested, interrogated, and their perfect intel would have instantly ended Al Qaida when our ‘top man’ infiltrated their hidden base and entered the self destruct code.
This is how Clinton did it, and this is how Obama does it. It’s basically the Jimmy Carter Delta Force model for national security.
I admit, Bush had such stellar performance keeping the USA safe after 9/11 that the paranoid are bolstered in their views.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 9:59 pmWTF would you do, Willie? Deport all Muslims? Shut down all airports? What?
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:01 pmOne armed pilot or air marshal on every flight could have prevented 9/11. Bush needed that month vacation.
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:01 pmYou say that like your answer is implied in your quote.
but it isn’t. Every president for decades has known somebody wants to hijack a plane.
What should Bush have done, pre 9/11?
Terror watch lists? TSA? Investigate all Muslims? Ground all flights? Secure the border (ROFL)? WHAT?
Answer the simple question. You’ve spammed the thread 100 times, so just answer JD’s question directly.
Otherwise, you are making George W Bush look like a great leader who had to govern people like you who are completely unfair. If you can’t explain your hatred, you are proving why Americans are falling back in love with this great president.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:02 pmFBI’s Minnesota field office knew that Zacarias Moussaoui, an Islamic jihadist, had been taking lessons on how to fly a 747. Tenet replied that he was briefed about the case on Aug. 23 or 24, 2001.
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:04 pmRoemer then asked Tenet if he mentioned Moussaoui to President Bush at one of their frequent morning briefings. Tenet replied, “I was not in briefings at this time.” Bush, he noted, “was on vacation.” He added that he didn’t see the president at all in August 2001.
We don’t even have this now. Your solution is probably completely impossible, and Obama hasn’t implemented it despite knowing people want to hijack planes and crash them into our buildings.
Explain, please.
I also dispute your claim that this would have prevented 9/11. One martyr is shot and then the rest know who has the gun. Another martyr is free to deal with it.
It doesn’t have to work every time. It just has to work once.
Your solution is impossible.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:05 pmRe: Comment by w — 11/4/2010 @ 5:29 pm
This included waterboarding, by the method of binding or holding down the victim on his back, placing a cloth over his mouth and nose, and pouring water onto the cloth. In this version, interrogation continued during the torture, with the interrogators beating the victim if he did not reply and the victim swallowing water if he opened his mouth to answer or breathe. When the victim could ingest no more water, the interrogators would beat or jump on his distended stomach.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukio_Asano#World_War_II
Please provide evidence that the form of waterboarding President Bush ordered was comparable to this.
Otherwise, your opinions are meaningless as far as I’m concerned, as you would show yourself to be just another whiny little leftist troll arguing that 2 + 2 = 5 (with all due respect to Eric Blair).
malclave (a0c68f) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:05 pmDoes it really surprise you, yellie, that bid laden wanted to hijack a plane?
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:05 pmBTW’ this whole on vacation thing is so far beyond silly, that it only serves to clarify exactly how big of an asshat the author is, and how fundamentally dishonest they are.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:07 pmW, we arrestedon August 16, 2001. This didn’t prevent 9/11,
They don’t have to succeed with every martyr every time. They only have to succeed once.
What’s your solution that would have thwarted 9/11? You have failed to list anything that would actually prevent every attack attempt.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:07 pmTenet told Rice there were signs that there could be an al-Qaeda attack in weeks or perhaps months, that there would be multiple, simultaneous attacks causing major human casualties, and that the focus would be U.S. targets, facilities or interests.
It was at this session that Tenet said “the system was blinking red.” By late July, Tenet said, it could not “get any worse.”
Bush, after receiving this info… went on vacation… for a month.
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:08 pmMy 188 is referring to us arresting Moussaoui on August 16, 2001.
And JD’s right. Bush was on the job during this entire ‘vacation’.
Leaving the DC area in August is due to weather, not so he can sleep in all day and eat candy.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:09 pmWillie does not recognize how badly he beclowns himself.
How’s the lotion supply Willie?
daleyrocks (940075) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:09 pmLet’s try this again. Let’s take your “facts” from your lasst comment puke. Assuming all of that was true, what would William yelverton have done. Be specific.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:09 pmYes, and they couldn’t get into his computer because
ian cormac (c07a45) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:10 pmof that stupid FISA law that Biden authored, if Mohammed Al Quahtani, had not been blocked at the Orlando Airport, there would be a fourth memorial not at Shanksville, but on the Capitol Steps
Please provide evidence that the form of waterboarding President Bush ordered was comparable to this.
At Bagram, Dilawar was suspended by his wrists from the ceiling of his cell for four days. His arms were dislocated from their sockets, and flapped around limply when guards collected him for an interrogation session. During his detention, Dilawar’s legs were so severely beaten that amputation would have been necessary.
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:11 pmBzzzzzzzzzzzzzttttttttttttttt. Non-responsive, idiot.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:12 pmBut he didn’t go on vacation. He simply did the job at a different location.
And you haven’t listed any steps Bush should have taken on August 24 onward that could have thwarted every attempt to hijack planes. You named one guy we should have arrested that we actually did arrest and still have in custody, which proved my point that 9.11 would have happened anyway. They can try to blow up our planes or hijack them and fail over and over again, until they succeed.
You are pretending a simple act or two would have saved us from this massacre, but all that would have thwarted 9/11 would have been sweeping and extreme.
Let’s not forget that Bush had thousands of notifications of threats to deal with, too. You’re demanding a police state, because in your paranoid head, Bush must have wanted 9/11 to occur.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:12 pmBush was on the job during this entire ‘vacation’.
After being warned of an impending attack… Bush’s priority agenda during his 9/11 vacation was to block stem cell research – a classic meaningless asshat conservative wedge issue.
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:15 pmWilliam yelverton cannot answer this seemingly simple question, Dustin. Rawstory and thinkregress and mediamatterz have not supplied him with the applicable lies, talking points, and memes.
Even when talking about stem cells’ yelverton lies.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:17 pmTighter airport security, passenger screening, air marshalls, armed pilots… there are many things Bush could have done, but what DID he do? Go on vacation and try to energize his jesusland base with stem cells.
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:18 pmWell, Dilawar — an innocent man — was definitely tortured.
I offer no opinion whether anyone higher up the chain of command who was not punished should have been punished. I do offer the opinion the army tried to cover it up and that is suspicious to the point of being suggestive.
I hope everyone here is decent enough to thoroughly and unambiguously regret what happened to Dilawar.
But I don’t believe for a moment that that is the case.
Christoph (8ec277) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:19 pmDustin – at this point, it is safe to assume that he would have done nothing,before, or after.
I am off to bed, early flight to Chicago.
I hope Willie the racist hill jack plagiarizer gets the help he so desperately needs.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:19 pmIt’s now reduced to citing Wikipedia.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (fb9e90) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:19 pmChristoph is almost as bad as Willie.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:20 pmSo you ADMIT HE WASN’T REALLY ON VACATION? But rather doing his job in another location because DC in August is very unpleasant?
You just admitted half of your comments were lies, w. You just admitted he wasn’t really taking a break from his job.
Thanks for that.
But let’s also note this has nothing to do with stopping 9/11. His ban on embryonic stem cell research funding (not a block on stem cell research as you lied) had no impact on our national security. It’s just something you’re pissed off about too.
You demand Bush somehow prevent 9/11. You know what would have helped prevent 9/11? Extreme measures like waterboarding, done to enough suspected people, months in advance, could have helped a lot.
Bush had thousands of threat warnings, so he’d have to torture tens of thousands of people… he doesn’t know which ones are of attacks that would succeed, after all.
So you’re demanding mass torture.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:21 pmFace it. Bush was warned. Bush did NOTHING. NOT ONE THING. No effort to protect America whatsoever. Worse, Bush was warned then lied about it.
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:22 pm“And you haven’t listed any steps Bush should have taken on August 24 onward that could have thwarted every attempt to hijack planes.”
Also, Clinton received warnings about plane hijackings and what did he do? Willie? crickets?
The hijackings mentioned in the PDB (posted above) were in conjunction with seeking the release of prisoners held in the U.S., not using the planes as weapons. Willie lies again. No surprise.
Willie, have you read My Pet Goat?
daleyrocks (940075) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:23 pmHe cannot point to one specific actionable item, Dustin. Hell, it is clear he does not even understand that concept, or even simpler concepts like honesty.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:23 pmWillie, why didn’t Clinton take bin Laden when the Sudan offered him to us? It would have saved a lot of trouble.
daleyrocks (940075) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:24 pmDaley – careful. Willie likes to call for people to ve hanged.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:24 pmWhat a disgusting comment.
Dilawar was horribly tortured. Your insistence we approve of this is insane.
You enter threads with nothing but the nastiest ad homs. You are such a coward in a debate, too. Even people who agree with your conclusions think you are a real piece of crap.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:26 pmw, do you think Bush wanted the 9/11 attacks to happen? What reasons do you think Bush had for this?
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:28 pmLIHOP or MIHOP, no doubt, Dustin. He is a conspiracy BDS nut.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:30 pmThe hijackings mentioned in the PDB (posted above) were in conjunction with seeking the release of prisoners held in the U.S., not using the planes as weapons. Willie lies again. No surprise.
Daleyrocks, I just kicked your ass again with facts.
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:30 pmBush received warnings with incomplete and inclusive information. Whatever steps he took to prevent an attack based on those warnings were clearly inadequate. That doesn’t mean they were unreasonable though, simply that they didn’t work in hindsight.
On the day of the attacks themselves, Bush was paralyzed for several minutes with the lower priority, but entirely understandable from a human perspective, activity of reading to children so as not to upset them while he processed the fact that America was under attack.
This was an error of his I’ve long criticized … even while acknowledging lots of people would hesitate in that situation and, like many of Bush’s mistakes, it was motivated by an excess of (rather than lack of) humanity. Regardless, knowing that a sudden attack on his country was possible as demonstrated at Pearl Harbor and by decades of cold war realities, he as President should have mentally prepared himself for this moment, in advance, to handle it quicker.
As it happens it didn’t matter yet it could have.
I love George W. Bush. But he wasn’t perfect.
Christoph (8ec277) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:30 pmNow, really, goodnight. At least to the non-mendoucheous twatwaffles.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:31 pmThe worst part, friends, is that the apparently mentally unstable Professor Yelverton may not be aware of how intellectually dishonest and bizarre his posts have become. Notice in particular his criticism of others for personal attacks—a practice in which he has long indulged. His goal is to do exactly what you see here. It’s not about “speaking troof to powder.” It’s about being a childish and rude person. Arguing for the sake of argument. His logic is so flawed, so hypocritical, that I have trouble believing that he believes his own nonsense.
This is his goal. Think on how empty his life must be (considering in particular the hour at which he writes) to consider what he is doing valuable and righteous.
It’s an odd sort of narcissism: accusing others of being unfeeling toward things he believes in, while being combative, rude, dishonest and just plain bizarre in response.
He is clearly on the road to Frischdom. And we all know how that worked out.
Eric Blair (dcced2) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:35 pmGoodnight JD.
What a piece of garbage Cristoph is. That’s more out of line than his lies earlier today about Patterico hoping O’donnell loses her election.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:36 pmwhat excuse can you give for a president who, when hearing so many threatening reports in the summer of ’01, takes a months vacation… and does not communicate whatsoever with his CIA Director … for a month?
Is this your idea of competence?
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:37 pmSigh.
So tough a man, huh? My money is on daley, when it comes to butt-kicking.
Next we will hear that fire can’t melt steel.
What a loon.
Eric Blair (dcced2) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:37 pmWillie could not kick someone’s ass unless you gave that midget a ladder first. And Allah knows he ain’t kicking anyone’s ass with facts.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:38 pmNow, Professor Yelverton. I know you are a troll. But I am pretty sure you want people to list the wonderful leadership job your Great Leader is showing at present. Right? That’s the goal? You want us to talk about how much he golfs, the bizarre mis-statements, the poor leadership.
Right?
I still don’t know if you are mentally ill or simply a performance art-style troll.
Eric Blair (dcced2) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:39 pmHe reminds me of Kos, JD. Remember when he thought he caught Palin in an ignorant quote about 1773, tweeted that she was stupid, was corrected, and then removed the tweet—because he looked like the ignoramus he was?
Same deal.
Eric Blair (dcced2) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:40 pmThis is what happens when a leftist loses power. Hate. Anger. Calls for violence and murder. Screaming about the racisms. BDS. That is who you and yours are Yelverton.
You and Christoph can take your sanctimonious pompous gasbag personalities and jam them in your rectal cavity. Oops. Already there.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:40 pmLie.
They were preparing a secure exit so as to not have Bush killed. He waited. His actions on 9/11 were exemplary.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:40 pmBesides, it is late for plagiarizing pickers in Tennessee. Or does he just post until he passes out?
Eric Blair (dcced2) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:41 pmEric Blair,
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:42 pmTell us about your relationship with Christ and how it contributes to your authoritarian personality that allows you to rationalize torture, mass murder and war crimes?
Eric – until the still runs out.
William Yelverton is one of the most vile cretinous lying dishonest foul deceitful plagiarizing midget hilljack gender bending skin flute players that is scared of brown people that can spell you will ever run across. He is demented, and his lunatic rantings actually caused at least one blog owner to simply pull the plug to get away from his idiocy. Mock and scorn. Point and laugh.
My name is JD, and I approved this message.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:44 pmDustin,
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:46 pmHistory will prove …. exemplary president
Don’t you get tired of kissing his ass?
And as a US Army veteran, I am absolutely certain Cristoph’s claims they conspired to hide a crime they prosecuted is completely incorrect. Such a conspiracy would have been exposed and prosecuted. We did not interrogate people that way. It doesn’t work and it isn’t sanctioned. It’s utterly unrealistic to all but the demented.
That Cristoph claims that some of us were OK with this crime shows incredible contempt and helps explain his behavior lately as passive aggressive attacks.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:47 pmNo.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:47 pmJD, WTF is William Yelverton and why are you so jealous of that guy? He must have stomped you repeatedly for you to be so paranoid of him?
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:48 pmDustin,
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:50 pmThanks for admitting to being an authoritarian.
Classic. Denying his own existence. Linking to rawstory and msnbc and the soros sites as “facts” . You fool nobody, you sick twisted gender bending fool. And apparently, you have no sense of shame and do not have the capacity to feel embarrassed. You are a pitiful small person, and not in the midget way.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:50 pmEnjoy the continued link spamming from the plagiarizing professor of the skin flute.
JD (c8c1d2) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:51 pmBTW, Cristoph’s strange argument structure in the last thread confused me quite a bit. I’ve seen on other blogs that Cristoph hates Patterico. DRJ cited one example of him calling him names for no apparent reason.
And yet he was defending Patterico from from a point of view that he claimed showed a terrible character… and this point of view was clearly and repeatedly the one P held (and to no character deficit).
It’s hard not to assume the worst about Cristoph. But all I can actually conclude is that he schemes to cause problems, and makes arguments he doesn’t agree with. I think he has some kind of love/hate thing going on.
Right now, we’re clearly on hate. W and Cristoph are simply expressing the same emotion in different ways.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:52 pm________________________________________________
Hang Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld for war crimes.
Nothing pisses me off more than the various liberals who have been more indignant, or even incensed, about George Bush than Saddam Hussein. Some of the resentment about waterboarding and Bush is merely an off-shoot of that idiocy.
These “leftys” are the same ones who get all weepy eyed over convicted felons (“their mothers weren’t given enough daycare support and free healthcare, and their schools weren’t well funded enough!!”) — certainly if such criminals are given the death penalty — and shrug off the circumstance surrounding those felons’ victims.
If such liberals at least stop deluding themselves into believing their biases are predicated on kindness, compassion, sophistication and humaneness, I’ll give them some slack.
Mark (411533) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:53 pmAttack the messenger if you don’t like the message JD. Classic.
The nation’s 238 leading presidential scholars, who have been polled annually for the last 28 years concluded President Bush ranked worst among modern presidents — and the fifth worst in history.
FACT
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:53 pmI said I wasn’t tired of respecting George W Bush, which you called ass kissing. I do not care about the profanity. Yours is actually far more tolerable than the slur Cristoph leveled.
Cuss all day if you want. I do respect Bush and I’m not tired of it.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:53 pmDustin,
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:56 pmTell us about your relationship with Christ and how it contributes to your authoritarian personality that allows you to rationalize torture, mass murder and war crimes?
Bush did a good job (better than ANY Dem president has ever done when it comes to fighting wars), but (as is always the case), Republicans are too soft-hearted when it comes o dealing with enemies. Every single terrorist that fell into our hands should have been executed years ago.
Waterboarding them is a waste of time, shooting them in the head after a ten second trial is the way to go.
Dave Surls (02f314) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:57 pmSpoken like a true constitutional conservative, Dave.
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 10:59 pmw, you bring up some fair points that even the 2008 GOP Presidential nominee would agree with you on, that waterboarding is torture, and you pointed out how that innocent Afghani taxi driver, Dilawar, was tortured to death by members of the U.S. Army 519th Military Intelligence Battalion, which is awful.
But you undermine yourself when you go completely partisan, like claiming stem cell research was somehow an important precursor to 9/11 or pointing to that biased poll of left-wing egghead historians.
Notice November 2nd and the election results? The people don’t agree with that assessment at all., Bush had, of course, picked up seats by this time in his term.
Going back to an area where you and I agree, w, it is sad and utterly predictable that my statement:
… is clearly correct. I wonder how many of the Christians here even bothered to spend a moment praying for the welfare of the man’s soul?
I’m not saying everyone here is a Christian. Could be some here of other/no faiths who either did or didn’t express any regret or have any internal feeling for this man’s horrible life end at the hand of trained U.S. Army interrogators committing torture and homicide.
But I find it strange how not even those of you who are Christian, claim to be filled with Christ and worship him and his message of love, can’t have spared a quick line in the midst of his debate to say, “Yeah, that was unfortunate.” I suppose that’s left to left w or centre-right libertarian agnostic atheist me.
Now I doubt it’s possible to run a war without any mistakes nor excesses. I don’t personally blame the President for that regrettable incident. The army — after trying to cover it up — kind of sort of had a half-assed trial and dealt out a modicum of “justice” to a few lower level actors and I use that term loosely.
So I’m rambling now because it’s friggin’ outrageous that one has to look to a leftist partisan like w for anything like a moral position on that and — limited to those here, now — none of the others of you can be bothered to even address it in a serious way.
Pathetic. Sad. And the fact that so many of you here are like that makes it a lot easier to take criticism from you guys.
Christoph (8ec277) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:00 pmSorry I have missed all the fun in debating the deranged. I have read through most of w’s missives, and yeah, he bears a striking resemblance to Patterico trolls of the days yore.
The one thing I would say in response to all of his Bush indiscriminately torturing and killing terrorists is thank God we now have a progressive President who would never dream of sending unmanned drones to attack terrorist bases where innocent civilians might be killed as collateral.
JVW (eccfd6) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:00 pmWhy is it that you ask about Christianity so much, anyway?
I am happy to talk to you about Jesus. Believe it or not, it makes more sense if you believe I’m wrong than if you think all my rationalizations are accurate and I am sinless.
Believe it or not, but Amnesty International thinks I’m a war criminal for my own actions. I’m not one, but I really take umbrage at your link which accuses Bush of genocide for using White Phosphorus.
That’s a serious accusation to make, this genocide one. Don’t cry wolf.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:02 pmWingnut creed:
ADMIT NOTHING
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:03 pmDENY EVERYTHING
SAY “THEY DID IT TOO”
“Daleyrocks, I just kicked your ass again with facts.”
Willie – You have not responded to a single question I have asked because you do not have the answers. How can you have done what you so claim. You are a coward and a liar.
daleyrocks (940075) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:06 pmIndeed, who is the man? True, he is short. He lives in Tennessee. He eats nuts an awful lot, and doesn’t like food additives (but writes the most ignorant New Age silliness about nutrition, while claiming to be oh so intellectual). He does play instruments.
And he seems to have quite the chip on his tiny shoulder.
Funny, huh?
Eric Blair (dcced2) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:06 pmAnd when our inebriated friend goes to all caps, why, that must mean he is completely correct!
Eric Blair (dcced2) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:07 pmDustin, Eric Blair,
Tell us about your relationship with Christ and how it contributes to your authoritarian personality that allows you to rationalize torture, mass murder and war crimes against children?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8548707.stm
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:08 pmNote that Cristoph is lying when he said we are bad Christians and horrible people.
What a piece of trash.
He levels an accusation that nasty without actually reading the thread.
Mind you, it’s insane to demand everyone drop everything and express their regret. This thread has hundreds of accusations, some completely lies, some half lies, some true. We can’t all sort that out in 5 minutes.
But before he concluded, based off no one saying one of these claims was regrettable, he should have had the honesty to check and see if anyone did say that (I said it was wrong).
Cristoph is clearly very angry with us. He’s generalizing us, judging our faith, and screeching his own hysterical conspiracy theory.
Why did the mask slip? I think I know why.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:09 pmWell, Dustin, if you said it was wrong and I missed it, I am glad. The others didn’t that I am aware of. I withdraw my criticism of you and thank you for expressing that level of decency on that important point regarding an innocent human life.
Christoph (8ec277) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:11 pmIs this whole “tell us about your relationship with Christ” some advanced debating technique they are teaching at Cambridge and Oxford now?
JVW (eccfd6) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:12 pmDustin, Eric Blair,
God is watching as you write here defending and rationalizing Bush’s mass murder and war crimes.
You will have to account for this.
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:12 pmIF?
You accuse us of lacking valid faith in God and you’re too sloppy to check your own completely stupid basis for this nastiness?
You are one of the rudest commenters I’ve ever seen on this blog. I have no information about why you were banned. I suspect it’s because you were extremely rude to someone for no reason whatsoever. The nicer I’ve been to you, the nastier you’ve been to me (indeed, I’ve tried being colder and it worked).
Why were you banned?
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:14 pmWell, at least that wasn’t in all caps.
Why do trolls repeat themselves so much?
Professor Yelverton, it is past two in the morning in your homeland. Don’t you need a protein shake or something, and some down time?
Oh, by the way: it must bother you to be so darned sure you are right, and have so many people disagree with you. It must make you wonder if you are nutty deluxe.
Here is a hint: you are a conspiracy theorist, just a couple of weeks from a tinfoil hat.
To be blunt, your ideas are not exactly mainstream. Which is why you fall back on how darned smart you are, and how stupid your opponents must be.
Because you know the truth: you are nuttier than squirrel poop.
So pack in it for tonight, get some sleep, and have a nice relaxing run in the morning. After some nuts, of course.
Eric Blair (dcced2) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:14 pmUnder the War Crimes Act of 1996
The President and senior administration and/or government officials could be subject to the death penalty for war crimes committed by US personnel in Iraq assuming that they directed or authorized murder, torture or inhuman treatment of prisoners or, if they permitted such conduct to continue after they became aware of the abuse. The statute applies to “any US national” and there is no other limitation with regard prosecution.
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:16 pmYep. Believe me, I’ve thought about my support for warfare.
I accept responsibility for agreeing to the War on Iraq. I am actually proud of it. I predicted it would kill 70,000 people and we would remain there for decades, so I am especially morally accountable, having known what we were getting into.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:16 pmOf course, War against Iraq is not accurate anymore. Now that we liberated the country and all.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:17 pmWillie – Tell us about your sexual relation with your cousins and barnyard animals and your crusade to lower the age of consent and how those activities feed your incoherent rage toward conservatives and people of faith.
daleyrocks (940075) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:17 pmDustin,
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:18 pmDon’t worry, just repent. God gives torturers a “get out of jail free card.” That’s the beauty of Christianity. The greatest story ever sold.
Jesus wrote a blank check, ‘eh?
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:19 pmDustin, you have lied on a couple occasions I am aware of, both under your Loquacious D and previously Dustin nickname. I have not found you to be a scrupulous debater.
I haven’t found the comment in question, but I assume you made it. Anyone else, I’d probably take them at their word and leave out the if. As it is, I did a quick search for “wrong” to find your comment and didn’t see it.
Now that you’ve called me on it, I see it there. Yes, you said it. Did anyone else other than you, I, and w?
My point wasn’t that no one wouldn’t express regret for it. I said that I didn’t think everyone would, a point which still stands. In fact, as I suspected, the majority have not.
Christoph (8ec277) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:19 pmMaybe some day, you will be able to step back and endeavor to see the bigger picture… I doubt you can overcome your dogma, but try… you’ll be a better person.
w (9df40f) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:21 pmWillie – I will pray for you again in the morning.
May you get what you deserve.
daleyrocks (940075) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:21 pmDaley, I think that Professor Yelverton felt this way after the Tuesday elections:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ5ob9B9yD4
Doesn’t that explain his nuttiness, especially at 2 AM?
Eric Blair (dcced2) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:22 pmI agree with you about religion, w, although that doesn’t mean you have to be an economically ignorant leftist rube. But yeah, that seems to be the case among the a-religious. (Thank goodness for Hitchens: One of the more genuinely aware, even somewhat pro-life, anti-religious folks out there).
Sadly, I think there’s only so much intelligence a person is given and one of the evolutionary advantages of religion was to simplify understanding of the world so people could get on with the business of living rather than trying to figure things out.
You’re a guy who tries to figure things out, w, but not everything you’ve figured out is so.
Christoph (8ec277) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:26 pmIn short, many conservatives can’t give you a good explanation of there core beliefs (Dennis Prager, a religious man, mind you, made that point beautifully the other day at a Q and A with himself, Sarah Palin, and Hugh Hewitt), yet a lot of there beliefs have stood the test of time, by tradition (aka “conservatism”) and work better than then the majority of brand new ideas and schemes dreamed up by the left.
Christoph (8ec277) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:29 pmEric Blair – Absolutely, although I would bet Willie would be wearing designer versions of the clothes in that vid.
I wonder if he corresponds with Michael Savage over the New Age diet stuff.
daleyrocks (940075) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:29 pmw, I’m a pretty scientific person, but without faith, but don’t disregard the benefits of faith. You’ve posted pictures of dead children in this thread, so surely you understand the need for this type of resource.
You mentioned evolution earlier. It’s not incompatible with religion to understand evolution and its role in nature’s diversity. You should listen to Sarah Palin explain this. She’s just so much more articulate than you are about these complex issues.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:30 pmI was looking for the old “I’m a pickin’…and I’m a grinnin'” routine on YouTube. It fits Professor Yelverton, except he isn’t grinning.
Eric Blair (dcced2) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:30 pmthat’s not true.
One time you said I lied and then posted a link to a thread where I said we could patrol the border. You said this was unrealistic… and that was the lie.
I’m not aware of the other lies. You don’t post links because you’re full of crap.
The Loq D nick was not meant to hide my identity. It was simply a joke. Unlike you, I did not use a different moniker to hide who I am on this blog. Don’t you recall boasting about doing that to evade a ban?
I’m not like that. You are. I also don’t lie about people. You do.
You made an absolutely HORRIBLE claim about my religious views, and generalized the entire blog’s readership on that. You’re completely unreasonable and dishonest. Your attempts to project that on me are a complete failure.
You like accusing people of things without evidence, but no one takes your word seriously and I am not concerned about my reputation taking damage from a known liar.
Why were you banned? Are you man enough to own it?
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:34 pmDustin, Professor Yelverton held forth on evolution some time ago, and I showed that he knew pretty much nothing about it…other than he hates religion.
Which doesn’t have that much to do with evolution, really. The Pope has no trouble with it.
Fact is, all Professor Yelverton has is hatred. And it is ignorant and smug hatred.
Remember: if he was an ignoramus about evolutionary theory (he insulted me nonstop, and I kept asking him freshman class questions about the topic, which of course he didn’t know)…why, why should anyone believe anything he says, at all?
I sure don’t take him seriously.
It’s like the Michael Crichton disconnect (the late author told this story): We read the newspaper. We find an article on a subject that we know very well. We discover that the journalist doesn’t understand the topic and misrepresents it. We shake our heads. Then we turn the page and read the next article…and are willing to take it seriously.
Professor Yelverton should stick to music. Seriously.
Eric Blair (dcced2) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:34 pmBTW, you claim you missed my comment when you made your sweeping conclusion.
You waited only a few minutes to test us, so you could have read each of the few comments that elapsed.
Not that your test was any less ridiculous.
You can claim I’m dishonest, but most people here know that I’m merely way way too indulgent with trolls. You’re projecting, Cristoph. I’m sure you’ll have the last word on what a terrible Christian I am. I don’t care. As far as I can tell, I’m the last one to stop paying attention to you.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:39 pmYou’ve mentioned this… it’s an amusing but sad thing to consider.
It’s really not that hard to believe that a conservative has an appreciate for modern scientific knowledge. The left can pretend we’re all insisting Jesus rode a Triceratops, but that’s projection. It’s this slice of the left that cannot be bothered to consider new ideas.
Michael Crichton is such a great guy to remember, btw.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:42 pm“using White Phosphorus.”
Great stuff. Hit a terrorist with a WP round and they’ll burn like a torch, screaming in agony all the way to hell.
That’s REAL torture (unlike waterboarding) and it actually accomplishes something. We ought to be using it every chance we get.
Dave Surls (02f314) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:42 pmDustin, so many folks on both the Left and the Right want people to be in little boxes, so we know how they believe in think.
The RNC and DNC like that thinking. I don’t. I am appalled by what each side believes about the other.
Eric Blair (dcced2) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:47 pmAren’t the ones claiming that Boooshhhh could have done more to prevent 9/11 the same ones that crucified him for the Patriot Act? You know the part about how their rights were being violated by the federal govt listening in on telephone calls from terrorist overseas to persons in the USA. Jackasses to the very core they are.
While we were and are being forced to be PC by searching 80 year old grandmothers at airports instead of muslims that have actually been hijacking aircraft for 40 years. Yeah that makes a lot of sense, search everyone but the ones that are actually doing the terrorist thang.
They are the very first to scream and rant about profiling.
Remember the old addage about wrestling with pigs or arguing with fools.
peedoffamerican (aa51bb) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:48 pmThat’s very high minded of you, Eric.
With W and Cristoph parroting so much hatred, I have a somewhat harder time admitting the right has its jerks who want to demonize the left entirely.
There are quite a lot of patriotic democrats out there. And there are quite a lot of reasonable Tea Partiers out there. when someone’s entire policy argument is ‘you guys have no character or morality’, all they are saying is something about themselves.
My trouble is that I want to tell those people about their character. Which is a little hypocritical but I don’t sweat it.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:51 pmDustin, I will say this: folks on the Right have been very critical of Republicans. Folks on the Left really hero-worship their side.
Very few Leftists held their nose and voted for BHO. They also didn’t hold their nose and vote for John F. Kerry. They didn’t hold their nose vote for Al Gore. And so forth.
Most Republicans I know have reservations about most of their candidates.
That is a good sign. I wish more Leftists felt that way. I mean, supporting Barbara Boxer? Really? Harry Reid? Honestly? And so forth.
Eric Blair (dcced2) — 11/4/2010 @ 11:56 pmEric Blair touts his knowledge on science yet he disbelieves science, i.e. macroevolution, AGW, depite the consensus and evidence. Only a personality disorder like an irrational religious and/or political dogma could do that to a person’s thought process. It’s a common human condition.
w (9df40f) — 11/5/2010 @ 12:19 amFar more common among conservatives I might add. Studies show their brains are less able to cope with changing information and they often rely on persistent response patterns, despite evidence to the contrary.
w (9df40f) — 11/5/2010 @ 12:23 amBill Roper, who sometimes comments here, wrote a song set in a universe in which Truman’s decision on the A-bomb went the other way.
PS: Had FDR not dumped Wallace in 1944, Wallace would have become president in ’45, and he would have decided against dropping the bomb, and this would have been the result. (he would also have given the bomb to the USSR, thus ensuring a global empire for Stalin.)
Milhouse (1448a4) — 11/5/2010 @ 12:26 amw, your powerful case against Eric Blair is the epitome of modern academic science. How you quote something he said, and take it apart piece by piece, demonstrating how he’s wrong…well, it’s nothing short of incredible and fantastic.
But it’s your unparalleled class that really shines. You have convincingly shown how the entire religious concept is a failure, and the human condition is a disease.
Well done, sir. Well done. I would probably be banned for calling for the death of a politician, but you do it with such humble civility.
There isn’t a soul who reads this thread who isn’t convinced to vote Democrat for the rest of their lives.
Dustin (b54cdc) — 11/5/2010 @ 12:26 amConsidering I have never discussed the topic of macroevolution with the guitar playing Professor Yelverton, I find his comment…trollish.
I do have a PhD in Genetics, sir. You don’t even understand basic chemistry. Tell me again about aspartame? What you do know is that politics and hatred rules your life.
The droll part is that this yahoo doesn’t understand practically any aspect of the science he supposedly supports. And that is, dare I say, a faith based approach to life.
Professor Yelverton, go sleep it off. I already showed that you really and truly don’t know even the simplest concepts in freshman biology. So don’t try to insult me, as you have tried so often before. You just demonstrate that you are an irritating troll (I find you sad, actually). Just go get some sleep, and try to deal with the fact that your point of view is narrow, prejudicial, angry, and not at all intellectual.
Strangely, these are the things you accuse other people of being.
Such a tool you are. Obama’s people laugh at folks like you. What did Lenin call your type? Useful fools.
Eric Blair (dcced2) — 11/5/2010 @ 12:32 amReligion is something that was invented during a time where man had few answers and not much science. Now, with the Dark Ages mentality, the division, self-righteousness and absolute certainty that religion gives to tru believers, it is a flaw in humanity which will likely be it’s demise. Fortunately, even some conservatives are bright enough to see this, even though they are generally less educated as a group.
w (9df40f) — 11/5/2010 @ 12:36 am“The President and senior administration and/or government officials could be subject to the death penalty for war crimes…”
Yeah?
Who’s going to put them on trial? Liberal Democrats? The same guys who brought you Dresden, the Tokyo firebombings, Hiroshima?
Something tells me that the issue isn’t likely to come up in a courtroom setting.
Dave Surls (02f314) — 11/5/2010 @ 12:37 amI didn’t know they offered PhDs from Liberty… or was it Bob Jones U?
w (9df40f) — 11/5/2010 @ 12:37 am“Professor Yelverton, go sleep it off…”
Unfortunately, you can’t sleep off stupid. It ain’t like being drunk.
Dave Surls (02f314) — 11/5/2010 @ 12:40 amSee, you tried that before, small man. Remember that I answered you at the time? I showed everyone you were a fool then. Why do you keep trying? Especially when you use the same approach, repeatedly?
What is wrong with you?
The sad part is how you crow and carry on about how darned smart and wonderful you are….when you are a sad little man who actually doesn’t know much other than D versus R.
And your looney conspiracy theories.
Again, go sleep it off.
Eric Blair (dcced2) — 11/5/2010 @ 12:42 amMr. Surls, you may be right. I was hoping he was just stoned or drunk. He may be mentally unbalanced. He is certainly immature.
Eric Blair (dcced2) — 11/5/2010 @ 12:43 amPosing as a geneticist is amusing. Personally, life is good. I’m all right jack, keep your hands off of my stack. I need not pose as something I’m not. I feel sorry for those that do. I hate to admit it but I’m part of the ‘leisure class’ and although I’m far from rich, I have no responsibility, or stress. My job is so bloody easy and so few hours for the money. With time on my hands, I do feel compelled to comment on the destructive rise of fundamentalism and anti-intellectual conservatism that are pooling together in an irrational fear driven, bigoted backlash against our first black president and all things non-white and non-KKKristian
w (9df40f) — 11/5/2010 @ 12:53 amSo, besides having to live where there are many fools that live in an illusionary supernatural worship dogma that binds them together, I really have no complaints, with my house paid off, my gorgeous girlfriend coming tomorrow, and since I’m off Fri-Tues, I’ll be chopping firewood in the morning, and it’s supposed to be sunny. I just bought my parents tickets for Rome so I’ve done my good deed for the day – in addition to trying to educate those of you who can’t learn, I’ll now bid you authoritarians, torture apologists, science deniers, and walter mitty posers … goodnight and goodmorning.
w (9df40f) — 11/5/2010 @ 1:04 am“Aren’t the ones claiming that Boooshhhh could have done more to prevent 9/11..”
LOL.
Who cares what they claim?
The guys who claim that are the same class of clowns (i.e. liberals) who got caught flatfooted at Pearl Harbor (and all over the Pacific) by the entire Japanese navy in December 1941; and in the Ardennes forest by a sizeable chunk of the German army in December 1944.
They’re claims are a total joke.
Dave Surls (02f314) — 11/5/2010 @ 1:13 amThose were amusing posts, Professor Yelverton. My favorite part was when you accused other people of making claims that weren’t true…more projection on your part, I’m pretty sure.
The best bit: calling other people “Walter Mitty” types.
People who have great things in their lives generally don’t brag. They are lucky, know it, and are humble. Funny that you brag, and in such a juvenile way. We have had lots of trolls here who have made outlandish claims. They usually involve a tone that your post shares. So, maybe you are all that and a bag of chips. But I doubt it.
Something you may or may not know, Professor Yelverton. The trolls who post here eventually break down and write really crazy or bizarre stuff. Your comments here will provide many people lots of laughs.
Just like the troll who posted “I work here is done.”
Unlike you, I really do hope you are happy. But I doubt you are.
I honestly think you need help. You certainly need to learn manners. But then, you are all safe posting at 3 AM from your computer.
Eric Blair (dcced2) — 11/5/2010 @ 1:13 amWhoops.
“Their claims” not “they’re claims”.
Dave Surls (02f314) — 11/5/2010 @ 1:15 amNobody could be that much of a caricature as this Yelverton cat makes himself out to be… could they?
John Hitchcock (9e8ad9) — 11/5/2010 @ 1:28 amWell, John, I work among academics every day. He is pretty typical.
Eric Blair (dcced2) — 11/5/2010 @ 1:34 amI’d love to see how Yelverton explains away the racist Democrat past (140 years worth), including the creation of KKK as the terrorist arm of the Democrat Party. He does remind me of a history teacher I had back in the 70s. I accused him of teaching revisionist history and his retort was all history is revisionist.
John Hitchcock (9e8ad9) — 11/5/2010 @ 1:49 amAnd I’d also love to hear his explanation as to how a “Mestizo” could hate all that is non-white. Course, it’s always the leftist nutjobs like the pseudo-intellectual Yelverton who needs to insert race into everything.
John Hitchcock (9e8ad9) — 11/5/2010 @ 1:51 amI wrestled with this on my blog as well. I compared water boarding with my experience of how some people in boot camp freaked out when we had to go into the tear gas tent. http://agentintellect.blogspot.com/2010/01/on-tear-gas-and-water-boarding.html
Jim S. (7120ff) — 11/5/2010 @ 2:06 am#213, that MSNBC article grossly misrepresents what the document it reports on says. If you watch the video rather than just read the article, you will see that the document “discovered” makes no reference at all to any notion that al Qaeda might use a plane in a terror attack, or “strike with” a plane. None. NBC just made it up. And that would explain why the document wasn’t submitted to the Commission; it’s completely irrelevant to the events of 11-Sep-2001.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 11/5/2010 @ 2:30 am#205 Actually he did quite a bit. Security at airports was stepped up, and so was security at federal buildings in NYC. I distinctly remember new security measures at those buildings, and complaints about how paranoid the administration was being. But of course the warning about possible attacks on those buildings turned out to be false, just as most such warnings are. (Even if the warning had been about the WTC, no amount of security there would have done a thing to prevent planes crashing into it. But in fact the 6-Aug-2001 briefing contained no mention of it.)
Also remember that this briefing was not about any imminent threat; it was about what al Qaeda might had been planning three years earlier. That included possibly hijacking planes in order to swap them for prisoners, which didn’t happen; it did not include flying them into targets, which did.
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 11/5/2010 @ 2:36 amIt’s not racist to criticize President Obama, it’s not racist to have conservative views, and it’s not racist to join the Tea Party. But there’s something about the nature and tone of the most vitriolic attacks on the president that I believe is distinctive – and difficult to explain without asking whether race is playing a role. — Eugene ‘Jimmy Carter’ Robinson
Icy Texan (659547) — 11/5/2010 @ 2:37 am#183, Was the president not receiving briefings during that month? Tenet may not have been handling those briefings personally, but did he not think this information important enough to forward to whoever was preparing the briefings?
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 11/5/2010 @ 2:40 am#217, who said anything about not communicating for a month? And is it the president’s job to call his CIA director every so often and ask “what’s up, I haven’t heard from you for a while”? What are they, teenage girls?
Milhouse (ea66e3) — 11/5/2010 @ 2:42 amuse waterboarding
ColonelHaiku (beb613) — 11/5/2010 @ 4:17 amto thwart liberal attacks
on America
Folks, meet William Yelverton. If anyone ever wonders who he is, just point them to this thread. This was epic hysterical, and quite clrarly document his delusional irrational hatred and bigotries.
JD (c971c7) — 11/5/2010 @ 6:37 amSome folks in the military and law enforcement make mistakes, that’s not nearly the same as deliberate murder, which is the base line comparison. Those at Abu Ghraib were poorly supervised, there was no bright line destinction, in the course of the operations. The intelligence integrations system
ian cormac (82637e) — 11/5/2010 @ 6:50 amnearly ten years later is still broken despite the DNI, the fizzle of the Times Square bomber, and
the failure of the Christmas Day flight, just goes
to show us, that Bismark’s line is still operative
It’s like the Michael Crichton disconnect (the late author told this story): We read the newspaper. We find an article on a subject that we know very well. We discover that the journalist doesn’t understand the topic and misrepresents it. We shake our heads. Then we turn the page and read the next article…and are willing to take it seriously.
Comment by Eric Blair
Absolutely
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 11/5/2010 @ 7:24 amGod is dead. – Nietzsche
Nietzsche is dead. – God
“Thinking they became wise, they became fools…”
MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 11/5/2010 @ 7:25 amHe’s never going to post a PR in the 5k, abusing meth like that. Plus, there isn’t a drug in the world that can counteract Little Man Syndrome.
Slartibartfast (5cddf4) — 11/5/2010 @ 7:27 amI hate to admit it but
I’m part of the ‘leisure class’I’ve got nothing worthwhile to do, and although I’m far from rich, I have no sense of responsibility, or stress. My job trolling Web sites is so bloody easy and so few hours for the money. With time on my hands due to my expulsion from decent society, I do feel compelled to comment onthe destructive rise of fundamentalism and anti-intellectual conservatismmy hysterically nutbag political ideas that are pooling together in an irrational fear driven by creative use of pharmaceuticals, leading to my bigoted backlash againstour first black president and all things non-white and non-KKKristiananything that doesn’t fit my leftard beliefs.FIFY.
Brother Bradley J. Fikes, C.O.R. (fb9e90) — 11/5/2010 @ 7:43 amThe sad part, Bradley, is that I work with people like this fellow—who think themselves wise, well informed, and tolerant.
It’s actually good to be a non-Leftist in academia. It helps me understand how outsiders feel and think. Because most academics are in lockstep with one another.
Eric Blair (c8876d) — 11/5/2010 @ 8:17 amBut they got there independently, I’m sure.
Slartibartfast (dce15e) — 11/5/2010 @ 9:08 amSadly, no, to coin a phrase.
Eric Blair (c8876d) — 11/5/2010 @ 9:35 amIf you brought together the funniest comedy writers in all of entertainment and asked them to come up with a sketch of the most delusional, obnoxious, batty, radical-left academic, they still wouldn’t create anyone as unbelievable as Yelverton.
JVW (eccfd6) — 11/5/2010 @ 9:38 amSo far beyond parody it is not even funny.
JD (85b089) — 11/5/2010 @ 9:41 amWaterboarding is coercive interrogation.
It does not inflict pain, it inflicts discomfort – extreme, intolerable discomfort – but not pain.
It does not inflict physical damage on the subject.
For these reasons, it is not clearly torture – but ultimately I think it is. (Those are also the reasons it can be inflicted in a SERE course.)
But it is, ultimately, coercive. Talk or suffer – the same principle behind unambiguous torture.
I don’t think we should do it. I won’t condemn anyone for previous incidents – of which there were only a handful, all involving dead guilty terrorist leaders, which yielded information that was essential to preventing the deaths of innocents.
But I don’t think we should do it anymore. We should take measures to insure that we don’t need to. There should be intense research into fMRI, “truth drugs”, and other techniques that can get information without such coercion. Better surveillance techniques, and less scruples about warrants and privacy of foreigners.
(The Constitution places no restraints whatever on what the U.S. government can do to foreigners outside its boundaries. Expedience is the only rule – is it a good idea? That includes agreeing to or following “international law”, and any moral concerns.)
Rich Rostrom (f7aeae) — 11/5/2010 @ 11:40 am“The 100, 000 dead Iraqis is LOW estimate…”
Baloney.
There isn’t any 100,000 people killed by the United States in Iraq. It’s total nonsense.
However, if you want to talk about people killed by the United States under “liberal” Democrat presidents Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Johnson…the number is in the millions, and that ain’t nonsense; it’s the truth.
Hell, two U.S. bombing raids in WWII killed more than 100,000 people (JUST IN ONE RAID!) at Tokyo and Hiroshima, and just about all of the dead were civilians.
Liberal Democrats are two things:
1. The biggest liars that ever walked the face of the planet.
2. The biggest hypocrites that ever walked the face of the planet.
Dave Surls (c9150f) — 11/5/2010 @ 11:54 amwill left his brain on
ColonelHaiku (beb613) — 11/5/2010 @ 4:54 pmYelverton Mountain and he’s
lookin’ for a life
Certainly he’s been caught lying time after time in this thread alone.
SPQR (26be8b) — 11/5/2010 @ 5:11 pmThe bragging was precious, SPQR.
Eric Blair (c8876d) — 11/5/2010 @ 5:23 pmWelcome to my secret lair on Skullcrusher Mountain
Slartibartfast (d504ec) — 11/5/2010 @ 8:32 pmThis is disgusting.
Oh, there’s probably much more wrong than just that.
It goes on.
Read it all.
You supporters of your laws can all be so proud … because this would be your first conviction.
Christoph (8ec277) — 11/9/2010 @ 6:41 amBush did not authorize that, you lying prick.
I AM MORE MORAL AND MORE INTELLIGENT THAN YOU!!!!! HEAR ME ROAR !!!!!!!!!!!!
JD (97a58b) — 11/9/2010 @ 6:44 amYou idiot, JD, I never said Bush did. I said this torture happened, apparently somewhat routinely, the U.S. Army tried to cover it up at first, and even continues to not wants its torturer-interrogator’s name used at trial, and on this basis, Kadhr was “lawfully” convicted.
You can’t possibly have read the article in that time, asshat. This is an afront to the law in the USA.
There was nothing I said in that comment that was a lie. You should look inside yourself, JD, and ask why you can read an entirely truthful comment excerpted from an article and you just reply, “Lies!”
It is you who cannot face the truth and have to cast your anger elsewhere.
A spat with you is not important. What I said above is important. But to deal with you for a second, you lie when you say I said Bush authorized this.
Christoph (8ec277) — 11/9/2010 @ 6:50 amThis is a thread about George Bush approving of water boarding 3 terrorists, yet all you keep doing is throwing unapproved actions out there as evidence of your superiority. If it was not an overt lie, is was a distortion and distraction, an attempt to broad brush the topic Asa opposed to e actual topic. Regadrless, you are an insufferable bore, as you continue to prove over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.
JD (97a58b) — 11/9/2010 @ 6:59 amSo, did you say that Bush approved. Nope. But make no mistake, that is the narrative you are pushing, while conflating the abuses, which you have described as routine, with the approved.
JD (97a58b) — 11/9/2010 @ 7:07 amYou’re no SPQR. I guess it’s not in you to apologize, so we’ll leave it at that.
Well, I guess we should just all stop talking about it. As long as the President didn’t personally order it, it’s no biggie.
JD, can you understand that something could happen somewhat routinely at a given base … and this doesn’t necessarily implied Bush authorized it?
It goes further than just the abuse. You should read the article. It really does touch on the damage this does to US law and also reputation for having a working system of law.
Christoph (8ec277) — 11/9/2010 @ 7:28 amI think you like to get your I am a superior, more moral, more intelligent sanctimonous pric on, and this provides you a perfect forum. Unless you denounce this in the manner and to the degree that Christoph describes then you are giving your tacit approval and are diminishing America in the eyes of the world and Bush tortures and probably kills pretty little kittens and Kyoto.
JD (306f5d) — 11/9/2010 @ 7:38 amI was born in a country with its streets bathed in blood shed by terrorists. People that do not know what it is not to be able to go out, not knowing if you and your family will be blown away by a bomb, should not have an opinion on this. Terrorists do not deserve to exist, they received a brain by mistake, otherwise no one can explain their monstrous behaviour. Putting them water in the mouth to make them confess? They put bombs inside the bellies of children that they open while still being alive, and use them as bombs. Please give me a break!
mireille (3debf2) — 11/10/2010 @ 6:47 pm