Seen on the street in Kyiv.

Words of Advice:

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

“The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” -- The TOFF *

"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown

“Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy.” -- Real, no-shit, fortune from a fortune cookie

"If you believe that you are talking to G-d, you can justify anything.” — my Dad

"Colt .45s; putting bad guys in the ground since 1873." -- Unknown

"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers

"The Dildo of Karma rarely comes lubed." -- Unknown

"Eck!" -- George the Cat

* "TOFF" = Treasonous Orange Fat Fuck, A/K/A Dolt-45,
A/K/A Commandante (or Cadet) Bone Spurs,
A/K/A El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago, A/K/A the Asset., A/K/A P01135809

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

American War Crimes

I asked Buzzy Krongard, the CIA's former executive director, if he thought waterboarding and painful stress positions were torture:

"Well, let's put it this way, it is meant to make him as uncomfortable as possible. So I assume for, without getting into semantics, that's torture. I'm comfortable with saying that," he explained.
Now we have what can be called "an admission against interest", which is probably admissible in court. From there, we can apply the Yamashita Doctrine and get all of them. For you know that as soon as some of those folks are charged, they'll roll over faster than a lap dog seeking a belly rub.

The CIA tortured people. That was done under the express approval of President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and Bush's National Security Council.*

My bet is that we are going to take a page out of the Japanese War Crimes Manual and pretend, as a nation, that it never ever happened.

But we all know that it did. We know that there were high-level Administration officials, right up to Dick Cheney and David Addington, who were ecstatic at the idea of torturing people, and who pushed for the use of increasingly brutal methods.

And unless we face up to it and really prosecute those responsible,** it will happen again.
________________________
* What, you really thought that the Abu Ghraib soldiers came up with the idea of torturing people on their own?
** Not like the way that the Obama Administration has refused to hold the banksters responsible for wrecking the economy.

2 comments:

Mike R said...

We won't face up to it, ignoring the past is what makes us exceptional.

The New York Crank said...

There seems to be an unwritten rule that no president prosecutes the former for any — any — crime whatsoever. They just give them a walk.

Not only could George Bush have been prosecuted for war crimes under the Yamashita doctrine (does anyone save you and I know about General Yamashita?) and for fabrications leading up to the invasion of Iraq, but Reagan could have been prosecuted for the sale of arms to Iran and the unauthorized invasion of Grenada, and Nixon for Watergate.

I suspect each President fearfully wonders, "If I go after my predecessor, will somebody go after me?"

And they may have a point. If President Obama had pursued Bush, just imagine what a Republican government, if we get one, would do to Obama.

Yours crankily,
The New York Crank