Pulling Strings?

Want to know just how God-awful Andrew Sullivan can be? Try this on for size; it's enough to gag a maggot:

To have lived in an America where its former vice-president can boast of supporting the torture of human beings is tragic and terrifying enough. For me and many others, this is not America.

You know, that last thing I need right now is a British-born, dope-smoking, HIV+ homosexual telling me what the fuck "America" is. The last time I checked, Andrew Sullivan's idea of the "rule of law" involved pulling strings to ensure the charges resulting from his arrest for smoking Arkansas Polio Weed on federal property were dropped. So if he knows America the way he knows the law, he don't know shit.

And of course, it isn't just America. Catholicism isn't up to Andrew's lofty standards either:

But it is more than disturbing, especially as we begin Lent, to watch a Catholic cable channel, EWTN, present a self-described Catholic, Marc Thiessen, defending torture on Catholic grounds as compatible with the Magisterium of the Church. Now I am not one to criticize Catholics who in good conscience dissent from the Magisterium on some topics, because I do so myself. I certainly do not deny that I am in conflict with the Magisterium on the question of homosexuality. This is not true of Marc Thiessen, as he is interviewed in an extremely supportive fashion by Raymond Arroyo, a Catholic media figure prominent enough to have been given the only English language interview with Pope Benedict XVI.

Dissent from the Magisterium? Once again, it's different when Andrew's involved. Then it's a non-issue. So of course the Catholic Church gets a big Andrew Fail as well. After all, it's Catholic:

There is much to say about this but let me on Ash Wednesday simply remember the Catholic church's own shameful history of torture. It was done, according to the Inquisitors, as a way to free the souls of the tortured, to bring them to a religious epiphany in which they abandoned heresy and saved themselves from eternal damnation.

Whatever. You know, you'd think, now that we're 13+ months into the Obama Administration, that it would have dawned on Sullivan by now that nobody actually cares about prosecuting Bush, Cheney and/or a cast of thousands. Other than Glenn Greenwald and Harper's that is, and who gives a flying one about them? As of yesterday, the Righteous Anti-War Left of 2001-2008 was spending their energies celebrating Obama's Afghan War triumph of capturing Mullah Baradar.

See, Andrew, this was all a big deal when it was a Bush/Republican War; now that we've got ourselves a Obama/Democrat's War, not so much. Besides, most Democrats understand the prosecution of Dick Cheney won't play well with the great unwashed in flyover territory, and if there's one thing more important than peace, love and understanding, it's retaining political power. Bye-bye war crimes trials, Andy, and for what appears to be the worst of reasons.

Then again, perhaps Dick Cheney's been pulling strings himself, eh Andrew? 

Of course the real question at hand is this: If the Drama Queen of The Atlantic can't bring himself to unattach his lips from Barack Obama's ass over this issue, just how seriously does he expect anyone to take all this melodrama? Clearly Barack Obama and Eric Holder have made the decision that - torture or not - bringing charges against Dick Cheney just isn't worth the time and effort. That makes them complicit and vulnerable to prosecution themselves. So why no thunder and damnation against them from St. Andrew?

Comments

[just passin by]

Well, Andy can always take the slow boat back to Jolly Olde England.

[Copper Quark]

Beam and mote, beam and mote there, Andy

[jt]

So, Sullivan aside, what is *your* opinion on torture? Is it that torture is wrong, and Cheney is a war criminal who should be prosecuted? Or that torture is wrong, but sometimes stopping terrorists trumps that? Or that torture is wrong but "we don't torture"? Or that torture isn't wrong and the Pope, etc. are just pussies? Or something else entirely?

[Dennis the Peasant]

Something else entirely.

I don't consider any of the techniques used between 2001-8 (i.e.-under the Bush Administration) to be torture. Even if I did, I wouldn't be having hysterics about it. And the bottom line is, I don't think Andrew Sullivan actually gives a shit about torture. The only thing that matters to Sullivan is Sullivan; he goes on about torture and Cheney because he just can't come to grips with the fact that he went apostate and it didn't work out...

As Sullivan sees it, the dirt on his hands will not wash off until those who lead him astray are punished. Not punished for torture, mind you, but punished for leading him astray. Remember: Andrew is all about Andrew. Nothing else.

The issue of torture is, for me, just about on par with the issue of "The War". When "The War" was Bush's, it was front-and-center for the Democrats in Congress, the liberals in the media, and the progressives in the blogosphere. Now that its turned out the Barack Obama has decided to continue "The War", Democrats, liberals and progressives simply pretend it no longer exists. No body counts on lefty blogs, no marches by International ANSWER, no fulminations by Dennis Kucinich, John Kerry or Harry Reid.

I turned against "The War" in 2005. I didn't vote McCain, first and foremost, because he promised to continue fighting a Bush-style war in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I didn't vote Obama, first and foremost, because I could already see he was going to weasel on pulling out of both countries. My opposition isn't based on whether I'm a Republican or not, it's based on what I believe.

Now that the polls are showing a majority doesn't believe the techniques used to be torture, and now that it is clear that putting Cheney and others on trial would be a political loser, everybody in the Democratic/liberal/progressive camp has suddenly moved on to "more important" issues. Their initial claims about torture were based not on the facts, but on perceived partisan political advantage. It's the same with Gitmo. Now that closing it is a political loser, D/l/p are finding the whole Gitmo thingy a lot more complex than when Bush was around. Funny how that works.

My point is simple: If Sullivan really was serious about the issue, his criticism would, first and foremost, have to be centered on Eric Holder and Barack Obama. They are the ones who are "shielding" Dick Cheney by refusing to prosecute. Sullivan refuses to make those criticisms in any meaningful way, and I'm calling him on it.

He's a hypocrite.

[mojo]

Hey, I know! Andy could pull a "citizen's arrest" on Eric Holder!

Hell, I'd pay cash money to see that.

[Reagan]

Nice homophobic rant!

[Dennis the Peasant]

Thank you.

[bandit]

I'll pay for his 1 way bus ticket back to the UK.

[Tim]

Hey dipshit.

"ee, Andrew, this was all a big deal when it was a Bush/Republican War; now that we've got ourselves a Obama/Democrat's War, not so much."

If you had the brains god gave a tapeworm you'd know Sullivan has been bashing Obama for his detanee program too.

But, don't let facts and research take away time from your teabagging masterbation.

And also, I always ask this question to the perverted Rightwing Sadists-Christianists....

Who would Jesus Torture?

[Tim]

"My point is simple: If Sullivan really was serious about the issue, his criticism would, first and foremost, have to be centered on Eric Holder and Barack Obama. They are the ones who are "shielding" Dick Cheney by refusing to prosecute. Sullivan refuses to make those criticisms in any meaningful way, and I'm calling him on it."

That ain't the only thing 'simple'.

he has bached Obama and Holder on these very issues. Try to do some research before looking like a total nimrod. Oh that's right. You don't care about looking like a total nimrod when most of your audience are Teabaggers anyway.

[jt]

Thanks for answering. You say the techniques we've used aren't "torture". Does that mean you're arguing that they *don't* amount to infliction of severe physical and mental suffering? Whatever you think of his hypocrisy or "hysterics", Sullivan has written a lot of specifc, well-sourced stuff about how we've used the same techniques that everyone agrees were "torture" when the Germans or whoever used them. (See http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/05/verschfte_verne.html for example.) Are you just dismissing that writing because you don't like his tone? Or are there subtle differences between the way *we* do waterboarding, beatings, stress positions, sleep deprivation, etc. and the way acknowledged war criminals did it that make it not "torture" in our case?

[richard mcenroe]

"If you had the brains god gave a tapeworm you'd know Sullivan has been bashing Obama for his detanee program too."

And if your brains didn't talk through the wrong end of the tapeworm, you'd know Obama is the one STILL DOING IT, not Cheney. Who's more important to stop at this point?

[Dennis the Peasant]

Timmah mad.

[Dennis the Peasant]

jt-

I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not qualified to speak as to what meets the legal definition of torture. Nor does the legal definition interest me much. Simply put, what Sullivan is going on isn't what I would consider torture. Beyond that, I would tend to give wide latitude to those actually doing the nasty job of keeping us safe.

I was once talking to a decorated Korean War veteran and he explained, quite matter of factly, how prisoners of war were interrogated at the front. They were told to talk, and if they didn't do so, one prisoner was shot to death in front of the others. That was what U.S. soldiers did to get the sort of information they needed to (a) do their jobs and (b) stay alive. I had no opinion as to the morality of his actions then, and I don't have one now... largely because I doubt I would have done differently myself. To them, looking death in the face, the only thing that mattered was staying alive.

I'm safe, I'm fat and I'm here. I've never served and I've never seen combat... I try to remember that before second-guessing others.

[Jeff]

for all the "waterboarding is torture" fans ... Obama still allows the US military to waterboard our own troops during SERE training ... so HE is torturing Americans right now by their definition ...
if waterboarding is torture then how is it possible that we had to hit KSM 183 times ? a laymans definition of torture would be something that you would never want to happen twice and you would do whatever it took to avoid it ... so if you got waterboarded once and you started talking and then decided to stop talking even with the threat of another application how is that possible it is torture ? Since KSM started and stopped talking apparently dozens of times he certainly decided that it was no bad enough to make him want to avoid it a second, third or 150th time ...
so why did it work with KSM ? because the reaction to it is not at the conscious level ... it’s at a deeper level where you want that instance to stop i.e. panic ... you talk and then your conscious brain takes over, realizes you are not dying and shuts down your loose lips because you know you didn't die and won't die ... it doesn't prevent the gut reaction the next time you are WB’d ...
I would assume your ability to shut yourself up becomes stronger the more times you are WB’d and eventually you panic but DON'T talk ...

AQ is actively training their guys to resist waterboarding ... I'd bet they are not bothering to train their guys to resist a cattle prod. Why, because real torture can't be resisted ... just ask John McCain ...

[jt]

I'm not a lawyer either, and I've also never served, so I agree with your point about second-guessing. But surely there is a big difference between the battlefield cases you're talking about that have always been a part of "war is Hell" and what Sullivan is talking about. Our military has a perfectly adequate justice system for the former. The latter is something new (for America anyway).

You can question his motives or sincerity, but Sullivan and others have presented a lot of facts that I find hard to dismiss. (And I did dismiss them for a while, since hey, who likes thinking that their country has done something like that under a government that I supported? That's kind of why I was intrigued enough to comment on your post, which I rarely do anywhere.) Obviously I'm not talking about just you here, but I see a lot more "I sure do hate those hippies" commentary that's dodging the real issue of who did what, who authorized what, and how it compares to stuff we all used to agree was just plain wrong when others did it.

[jt]

And Jeff, come on. I understand Dennis's points; I just don't agree. But waterboarding isn't torture because we use it to train our troops to resist torture and thus Obama is the *real* torturer? WTF?

And since you mentioned it, was John McCain "tortured" in your opinion?

[Nodrog]

JT, don't you understand? What Jeff is saying is that it's OK when our side tortures, but it's not OK when the other side tortures.

Which is the position of the Republican party, apparently.