Defending the Indefensible

Cheney and Rove want to defend the indefensible. They feel that what was learned by torture was worthwhile.

This is false. The same information that was learned from tortured prisoners, was learned from sources without torture.

They defend the use of torture from the US Armed Forces lessons from the program where troops were subjected to torture to help them resist it in the field in event of capture. Troops were water boarded a few times, as I know at least two former soldiers that were treated to such. They weren't water boarded six times a day as one of the prisoners was. The key element that is missing is knowing when and how much. The second element is knowing who is doing the act.

One memo suggests that sleep deprivation of up to weeks leads to no harm and alleges support based on a quoted university researcher. That researcher has stepped forward to note his dismay at the misuse and abuse of his work. After even a few days of sleep deprivation in conjunction with the threat of repeated interrogation leads to only gibberish. Once the subject reaches the point of the inability to concentrate, the information becomes useless. This point will be reached earlier with the pressure or stress of interrogation.

When given the opportunity to participate, the FBI chose to opt out of the information by torture. They felt their methods of non-torture were superior through years of experience with suspects in all areas of crime. The CIA was specialists in espionage, the gathering of information without the subject's knowledge. The Bush administration chose to let the CIA lead, because they favored and supported the torture of prisoners.

Torture was used in the hope to find the crucial link between Hussein and Al-Quada. There was none, but they eventually got the prisoners to admit this. They could never find other support for the conjecture. Because it didn't exist. The two were were based on two waring factions of the Muslim religion. They didn't understand the culture enough to know that their cooperation was highly unlikely.

Their defense of torture has changed many times. When discovered while Bush, Cheney and Rove were in operation, it was blamed on a few bad apples at Abu Ghaib. They prosecuted a few to show they meant business.

Later Bush himself denied torture was being used. We now know from released records that it was based on the flawed (see above on sleep deprivation) legal documents that declared specific methods as "not torture." Specific details in those documents were exceeded (like water boarding an average of 6 times a day for 30 days) invalidating its application. It wasn't a few bad apples unless you specify the trio leading the country at that time.

Last now, Cheney wants the release of only two specific memorandum to show the extent of what we learned from these unethical methods. This is the "end justifies the means" argument. It only rarely works. At this time we still haven't isolated or captured Osama Bin Laden, so all the torture implemented failed. Much of what was learned was only valuable in a political sense to a man who's deathly afraid of virtually everything.

I'm speaking to you Dick Cheney. Undisclosed location. You are the most paranoid person to ever have been a heartbeat away from the Presidency. You are the one man in our great history that has no defense.

Is It Warm Enough For You, Now?

Well, I had a great rant regarding Jerry Falwell. I believe he's not enjoying his eternal life in hell. I believe he has gone there for his inability to forgive, to see himself as the judge of mankind and he found them wanting. Instead of encouraging their actions to improve, he deplored those who had. So ye reap what you sow, Jerry. Condemnation is a bitch. I can forgive you, but its too late for you.

Somewhere while typing it, I stopped to think and meandered away to look at a web site on what else, bike parts. Through no fault of the website, my browser locked up. I can't explain it, I can't seem to prevent it, because I don't know what exactly I do to make the situation occur. I can tell when it has happened because my cursor takes on a new appearance. And I can't use Alt-Tab to cycle through programs. At best, I can use Task Master to just kill my browser window. Worst case, like this, I have to restart. Dumbass. I should know better and type my rants into Word Imperfect (take that Microshaft) and then copy and paste it into the Dashboard.

Its gone and I'm not one to try to recreate it. I also wrote about Wolfdownadick and his inability to see how his nepotism wasn't more than poor judgment, it was evidence of poor leadership. I wonder does his girl friend now wear a tee-shirt that says, "I dated a dick head and all I got was an undeserved promotion and a ginormous quarter million dollar undeserved raise"? Do you think I could quit my job and make enough selling them to go cross country on my bicycle? I didn't either, but I thought I'd ask.

That rant flowed into one more about our AG, the new and improved "G" man. How the man is upholding the law, right law. Thanks a lot and say "Hi" to Jerry when you die.

Last I wrote a long bit about the new "War Czar" and how many other folks, like retired four star generals turned this "opportunity" down. So this three star general was hungry enough or stupid enough, you pick, took the position. I think this is his punishment. Back some four years ago, he was publicly advocating that we force the Iraq army and police to step up and take responsibility. He was then for pulling our troops out. His aim, don't let them get used to our support, the faster they stand on their own, the better.

Now the rationale in the Rove-Cheney-Shrub tricycle is that this dude will cut through the bureaucracy. Sure he will, when the generals in command outrank him. Right. I painted a tale from a joke where US corporation holds a rowing race against our Asian counterparts. We lose, so we add managers to the staff thereby making the boat heavier and slower not faster. The Asians just keep on training looking to get better, incremental improvements. We keep adding management and oversight and losing by more even though eventually we invest huge amounts of money into technology that does little to reduce the management impact. And so it goes.

That is what I see this War Czar as. It isn't moving to the pace the public thinks it will and the best things the Shrub can think of is, add troops and add a layer of management. What a fucktard.

If you want to see a few photos of the axle that busted, they are in the bike building folder at my Picasa website. There are more photos under the Bleriot folder too. Last there is the ubiquitous photo of Ray riding the Segway, as well as photos of two others trying them out and a lot of other photos from the Hiawatha Cyclery rides. Under Hiawatha Cyclery Rides, what else?