Torture Loving, chubby chickenhawk, soft handed elitist Marc A. Thiessen continues to be a rightwing liar and morally reprehensible person

My gut reaction on reading Marc Thiessen’s new book, Courting Disaster, was: “Why is a speechwriter who’s never served in the military or intelligence community acting as an expert on interrogation and national security?”[I]f you’re not an expert on a subject, shouldn’t you interview experts before expressing an opinion?   

From a 2010 Slate article.  It's quaint to look back upon those times, when people believed rightwingers claims to patriotism and didn't understand the Republican Party is a fully-fascist organization hell bent on destroying the United States and creating a Rightwing Authoritarian Dictatorship.  

Like shit on the bottom of your shoe, rightwing shits never really go away. W(orst POTUS Ever) speechwriter Marc A. Thiessen continues in his role as lying propagandist in the Washington Post Opinion page (Twice weekly!). This week Torture Lover Thiessen wrote a piece proclaiming the Biden Student Loan Forgiveness plan is Stolen Valor.   It should be noted that like most of the Bush War Room, Thiessen is a doughy chickenhawk coward who never served a fucking day in Uniform, let alone in a hostile environment. 

But, imagine that?  A rightwing elitist who never served, never had a real job, never done a day's worth of real work, who's lived on government largesse his entire cushy life, bashing working class Americans for receiving a modest stipend and using "The Troops" to do so.

Thiessen was on par with John Yoo in approving waterboarding and various other forms of torture and much like Sean Hannity, Thiessen agreed to be waterboarded to show how easy it was but, then backed out.  As a couch-borne commando, Thiessen infested multiple media outlets, selling war propaganda and lies to the American public during the Bush Phony War on Terror era.  

After serving as a propaganda mouthpiece for War Crimes, Thiessen moved to the eternally lucrative rightwing grift circle of media appearances, book tours, College speeches, and opinion piece writing.  And the Corporate Media dutifully aided him in the conservative agenda.  The Corporate Media exists to disseminate rightwing propaganda in a semi-sanitized, palatable form for normie America to consume. Even if a specific argument doesn't gain traction, the repetition of lies, conservative bullshit, and light fascism has the desired effect of lodging in the brains of its' readers, where years later a hazy recollection will churn the lies back to the surface.

Like all rightwing American Roman Catholics Marc Thiessen is pro-torture, pro-murder, in favor of reducing women to second class status, against vaccine mandates, and against charity for the poor and downtrodden.  So against everything the Catholic Church was ostensibly founded to mitigate and alleviate.

Thiessen is a shameless liar, a coward, a terrorist, a scumbag. But, far from excising him from the body politic these are positive values conservatives want in their thinkers and leaders and has lead to a 20 year career for a doughy loser who delights in the thought of torturing people and watching Americans suffer.

Gold Showers on the EGA

"A fate worse than a fate worse than death... Sounds pretty bad." ~ Blackadder IV

The images and video of US Marines urinating on the corpses of (Al Qaeda? Taliban? Unidentified Pashtun Tribesmen?) has elicited the standard reaction of outrage and condemnation from the SecDef, Commandant of Marine Corps, Secretary of State and put into motion a full NCIS investigation of the video and every possible Marine involved from Camp Lejeune. This incident is rapidly degenerating into the Torture "Debate", wherein the Right-Wingers defend something completely wrong because our "enemies" do bad things thereby making it okay. Mainly because conservatives have no compunction about being evil.

Personally, I never understood how it was fine to kill someone but, the follow on act of "desecrating" their bodies was then deemed the actual violation of the Rules of War. This is no doubt because I am not a gentleman.

Marines should know War is a gentleman's pursuit because every new recruit is taught Marine Corps Officers back in the 19th century wore a Barracks Cover with the Quatrefoil embossed on top. Officers were deemed not-legitimate targets for sniper fire and had to have a distinguishing mark on top of their cover to inform snipers of their non-targetable status.

Other ridiculous Rules of War have been tried over the centuries, the infamous Vatican decision in 1139 the crossbow was too deadly a weapon and could not be used, except on Muslims. All the way down to the the Geneva Conventions of the 20th Century.

The currently accepted Geneva Conventions (Right-Wingers orgasmic love of torture notwithstanding) are really a way Large Armies can fixate and maximize their advantage over small armies. Only a foolish military commander would follow rules of war which ensure his destruction. The moment Al Qaeda begins to mass large troop concentrations for a pitched battle is the moment they are obliterated. Such a concentration, training grounds, depot, armory, motor pool would be spotted and targeted with a massive amount of airpower.

Our enemies would be exceedingly stupid to follow the Rules of War.

This latest incident won't change much. Besides not getting the slap-in-the-face Good Conduct Medal, these Marines will be punished for their crimes, but what can never be brought up is that War itself is a Crime. Jingoistic War Profiteers and Chicken Hawks make too much money off of war. It doesn't matter that War breaks minds and bodies, plenty more were they came from, but don't make the War look bad.

Thus the Afghan War will continue for a few more years (or 4 more years if Mitt Romney steals into the White House) and new Wars will be hatched by the Establishment and the 99% will suffer all the costs, fiscal, physical and mental for the profit of the 1%.

Related:
Golden Shower aficionado Dana Loesch, the St Louis Tea Party spawn of Andrew Breitbart, spoke on her radio show and declared "I want a million cool points for these guys" and "I'd drop trou and do it too..."

Loesch is given air time on CNN regularly and was deeply involved in the baseless smear campaign of the two University of Missouri-Kansas City teachers Judy Ancel and Don Giljum. And as for her "I'd drop trou and do it too..." line I don't remember ever seeing her skinny chicken hawk ass on the yellow footprints let alone in Afghanistan.

Related 2:
It is easy to tell when an action is absolutely wrong because all the right-wing, never served a day jingoistic chicken hawks come out in support of the action. Cowardly warmonger Mark Levin declared "count me in as staunch supporter" of the pissing Marines.

Related 3:
Now you can be absolutely sure the action is wrong, criminal and evil because Representative Allen West (known for torturing innocent Iraqis and trying to intimidate Congresswomen) has declared, “As for everyone else, unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell.” Yes, Congressman West how about reading the Bill of Rights.

Ayn Rand Paul Wimp

John Galt never cried even when he was being Water Boarded (i.e. tortured). Galt not only had the wherewithal to retain his thought processes he used them to cause the torturers to flee in terror.

But Rand Paul hasn't even "won" a general election and he's already crying about the Liberal Media Talking to him.

How is Rand Paul going to battle Al Qaeda when a Rachel Maddow confrontation leaves him blubbering and sputtering? How is Rand Paul going to destroy the Federal Reserve when MSNBC makes him cry and retreat? How's he going to defend himself against the Washington DC's Illegal Initiation of Force when he can't even make it through a Neil Cavuto interview without whining?

The Clownish Chicken Hawk Tom Tancredo looked positively manly in comparison when he ran away from Markos Moulitsas.

Of course, Rand Paul is the perfect Ayn Rand Objectivist as he is a fake Doctor, who hates the common man, loves slavery and will work tireslessly to defend and enthrone Corporate Monsters as the Controllers of America.

Conservatives are Criminals (Watergate Jr)

From War Criminals responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, like Dick Cheney, to bumbling low level buffoons, like James O'Keefe, who apparently believe reading a few Ian Fleming novels and watching The Chinese Connection would endow them with the ability tap phones and bug a US Senator's office.

But, while it is axiomatic that all Conservatives are Criminals the only thing I have yet to determine is whether Conservatives are criminals due to learned behavior (from being around and imitating other Conservatives) or is it a genetic variant that Conservatives possess which draws them to being criminals.

Updated:
Of course, flabby chicken hawk Andrew Breitbart who employs James O'Keefe is busy conducting damage control and defending his protege. The comments from Bretibart's vegetative criminal punk ass bitch conservative troglodytes clearly indicate that no matter the criminal act, Conservatives will always defend their criminal co-conspirators.

The best comments are those declaring 'O'Keefe can't possibly be this stupid.' Well, yes he can. Just like the young conservative lady, who scratched a 'B' into her cheek and lied claiming an Black Obama Goon held her down and cut it into her face conservatives are actively ignorant and violently stupid and they lie all the time.

Updated Again:
I think since there is much we don't know [from Raw Story: Links to Intel Community] about the break-in by the 4 cowardly conservative criminals, the only way to determine the truth is to water board them. Because Water boarding is akin to the prank they pulled it should be used to figure out what's going on. This case (since it has the potential to involve espionage charges) may also warrant Enhanced Interrogation Techniques.

If O'Keefe, Dai, Basel, and Flanagan have nothing to hide then they have nothing to fear from the interrogators.

Updated one last time:
James O'Keefe graduated from Rutgers in 2006, how come we aren't reading about how he joined the Corps and served nobly in Iraq during the Surge? Ohhh, that's right as a Conservative he is a natural coward and chicken hawk...

Related:
'Andrew Breitbart' admits paying 'James O'Keefe' to commit Felonies

Interrogation

I'm sure that killers are all around
United fools
Bewitched by words
These weapons take control ~ Lay Down The Law, Sodom

My Department sent me to an Interview and Interrogation class getting me off of midnights for 4 days.

Yay or rather Bleech! I hate Chicago traffic in the mornings and mornings in general, plus I figured since I listen to Sean Hannity I don't need an Interrogation class all I need to do if I suspect someone has committed a crime is playfully water board them. While the suspect is laughing and enjoying some collegiate rough housing they'll feel so cordial towards me that they will admit to every crime they have committed plus a few others I choose to charge them with; Case(s) Closed!

But, I went nonetheless. I was astonished to discover the booklet for the class to be nearly 150 pages long! I was expecting only a one page pamphlet with the following:

Step 1: Grab Suspect by Throat.
Step 2: Remove Baton from Belt (Officer may show Suspect the Baton to entice cooperation)
Step 3: Strike Suspect with Baton.
Step 4: Repeat if Necessary.

Imagine my surprise when I read this following passage in an essay regarding Interrogation:

The clearest example of an interrogation practice that will void a confession is the infliction of physical force or pain upon the person under interrogation, because it is an incontestable fact that harm of this nature may produce a confession of guilt from an innocent person. This is also true as regards indirect physical harm - for instance, an unduly prolonged continuous interrogation, especially by two or more interrogators working in relays or the deprivation of food, water, or access to toilet facilities for an unreasonable period of time. A threat of physical harm may have a similar effect --- the extraction of confession from innocent persons. ~ Fred E. Inbau

Holy Fuck! Who allowed this traitor into the country? But, then I realized the problem. The Punk Ass Bitch Chicken Hawk Teabagging Birtherite Conservatives and their Republican Fondlers don't know anything about interrogation. Most have ensured their splotchy, flabby, pasty-white flesh will never see the harsh light of a combat zone so they don't understand the Fog of War and the Right Wing Extremists hate the Police because the Police are agents of the Government and the Government can never do anything well. The Right thinks everyone arrested must be guilty and everyone captured by the Military in Iraq or Afghanistan is a Terrorist or Guilty of aiding Terror and therefore there is no need to deal with any processing but only to move onto the sentencing phase, with rougher being better.

Interrogation of suspects is a valuable and necessary tool for the extraction of information both for the military and civilian law enforcement. However, what the Terrorists on the Right want to use it for is the extraction of "a pound of flesh".

It's a Binary function. Similar to the declaration you can't be a little bit pregnant you can't do a little physical torture and hide behind the euphemism Harsh Interrogation. It either is or is not physical torture.

Related:
Disaffected and it Feels So Good: Illinois Get To Know Your Laws 2 (02/09/2009)

The Pimp and The Prostitute

Everyone knows that Anderson Cooper is understating the outrage which would occur if a Democrat took on, as his mission, to undercut the president and cheer on another terrorist attack the way Liz Dick are doing. They would be called traitors.

Just ask the Dixie Chicks, and they were not even praying Al Qaeda would attack America the way Liz Dick, She Who Will not be Named 2, and the Thrice Divorced, Drug Addicted, Pedarast Child Rapist are...

So Liz Dick tell the American people why is it that everyone who undergoes a very controlled and completely supervised water boarding states it is torture? Yet Liz Dick and the other members of the Pro Human Pain and Suffering Crowd who have not, rabidly cheer on the practice.

Mancow Muller is the latest and his wasn't even "enhanced", Muller somewhat sheepishly admits he did not want to believe water boarding is torture but concedes it is drowning. And the guy administering the "water cure" admits to be untrained plus he doesn't place Muller in hour long stress positions, slap him in the face or sleep deprive him before hand.

Who can take seriously the stance of the Pimp and the Prostitute who have never been shot at, who have never shit in a hole in the desert, and who have never experienced water boarding? Liz Dick should be tried for warcrimes and subjected to enhanced water boarding prior to their final sentencing.

Update:
The disgusting Pro Human Pain and Suffering Crowd predictably declare it's not Torture because Muller was able to stop the procedure whenever he wanted and drowning isn't dying if you live...

Stalag XVII-B, Revisited

"You just kicked the shit out of an innocent man."
"Innocent? Innocent of what?" ~ Gene Hackman explains his style of policing from the film Unforgiven.

Remember the film Stalag 17? One of the techniques the Nazis use is Sleep Deprivation. Watch the scene. In it Von Scherbach also declares Lieutenant Dunbar is not a prisoner of war. Strange how much Ari "Sleep Deprivation, I have no Problem with" Flesciher resembles Von Scherbach and not Otto Preminger.

The CIA was granted the authority to keep captured enemies shackled and awake for days. Detainees were clad only in diapers and not allowed to feed themselves. A prisoner who started to drift off to sleep would tilt over and be caught by his chains, according to the report.

What anti-american terrorist loving fucks those movie producers were in the Fifties. Of course, I don't know what to do with prisoners of war. But do we really need to further dehumanize them?

My strongest ire is held for those who craft such policies and then sit back at a distance never having to dirty their hands. Those who chickened out when they were younger, those who deferred their military service, yet in latter days became Hawkmen. The men and women who have to carry out the orders and are tasked with sifting through the excrement and filth are the ones who become most damaged. For they are the ones we torture too. We allow their humanity to be stripped as they work to deprive another of theirs.

This is a supreme tragedy of war.

Water Board Dick Cheney

No government has the authority to Torture. No government can grant itself the authority to Torture. No circuitous legal memos can circumvent the lack of authority. Torture is a crime. Crafting memos to legalize Torture is a further crime. And any documents should be treated as evidence of intent.

The reason we are seeing such a rabid defense of Torture is because once the Right Wing Extremists, the Pro-Human Pain and Suffering crowd, admit the actions of Bush, Cheney, David Addington, John Yoo, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfled, Paul Wolfowitz, Condie Rice and Jay Bybee were criminal the Bush Torture Regime are going to face War Crimes Trials. And once they are convicted, since we have proud admissions of knowledge, intent and direct supervision of Torture from the grpup, the entire Right Wing will be so fragmented to be possibly destroyed politically for a generation.

Good. Torture should have such consequences. If you support Bush and Cheney you are supporting Criminals.

Torture, Fucking Torture! Rice and Cheney crafted the Torture policy months before the legal memos supporting it were written. Cheney used the Troops as scapegoats when the first knowledge of Torture came to light! Cheney even tried to use Torture to prove a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq. Dick Cheney is a War Criminal who should face the consequences similar war criminals have faced.

Obama is the tyrannical fascist? Obama is Worse Than You Know Who? Fine. Then President B. Hussein should have the power to water board and sleep deprive all suspected Extremists. Start with Jay Bybee and David Addington and work your way up to George Bush, and Dick Cheney, and all the members of the Torture Regime who with full knowledge sought the power to Torture.

How can we have thousands of screaming Tea Party Protesters bewailing government tyranny over health care and railroad construction whilst silmultaneously wanting that same government to have the ability to Torture? Ahhh, but there's the rub. They don't. Those patriots want a Republican to have the power. For when a Republican president and congress increase the debt by Trillions it's okay, when a Republican president and congress legalize Torture it's okay.

Torture

Torture. George Bush oversaw the implementation of Torture in the name of the American people. The years of Bush the Liar claiming "We do not Torture" and any instances were the actions of a few rogue soldiers sit like a cold shit sandwich shoved down the collective throats of the American people.

Here is the strangest dissonance from the Pro-Human Pain and Suffering Right Wing Extremists: The harsh interrogation methods we used are so wimpy that slapping oneself on air is the equivalent. However, they are so awesome and useful that if need be we can use them and break someone in 35 seconds to save us from the Right Wing Extremist Bogus Ticking Time Bomb Scenario.

So it's both Torture and Not Torture. Or the AQ guys we capture aren't tough enough to have their nuts cut off like Karl Rove & Dick Armey and other Pro-Human Pain and Suffering Right Wingers.

Torture does not work. You will not get accurate information. This has famously been demonstrated by John McCain admitting to being broken by torture and providing false information to his tormentors. Go to Crooks and Liars for video of Mr. Anathema loving him some torture.

Of course, I could be wrong and all those people tortured by the Inquisition actually were Witches and in League with Lucifer! And the Torture kept christendom safe just the way Fox News proclaimed Torture Kept US Safe!



Update (04/21):
Pamela Geller over at Atlas Shrugged has posted a letter she received from a "Marine". It is absolutely evil and ridiculous. The conclusions reached in the letter is that Torture of captured enemies is necessary to make Soldiers and, of course, President B. Hussein releasing the memos has weakened America.

One of the ideas posited is Drill Instructors' conduct in boot camp is the equivalent of what the torturers did. Well, I was not waterboarded in boot. And I'm not sure why SERE school ever exposed servicemen to waterboarding if it's not torture. Of course, this is when the letter sets up an excluded middle and jumps to to the claim if the US can't torture captured enemies, we can not have boot camp.

Drill Instructors stress recruits, but always in the back of the recruits' mind is the knowledge he won't be killed. Why were homicide charges brought against the DI (who was acquitted) when a recruit was allowed to drown in 2005? Was it because the actions of the DI in causing the young man Jason Tharp to drown were viewed as criminal and not merely as really tough training?

Combat and Torture are not the same. Training for combat and torturing people are not equivalent. Trying to tie them together shows a disturbing lack of moral courage. And this line (bold in the original):

The training techniques were written with the blood of dead soldiers who had to learn the hard way how to train an army and conduct a war.

indicates the presence of a malevolent soul.

Illinois Get To Know Your Laws 2

This is memo to President Obama. Sir, until your recent victory to the office of the Presidency you served as a Senator for the State of Illinois. Here in below is a law I believe you should acquaint yourself with and apply towards George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, and everyone else associated with Torturing enemies captured during the War on Terror.

(720 ILCS 5/12‑7) Compelling confession or information by force or threat.

(a) A person who, with intent to obtain a confession, statement or information regarding any offense, knowingly inflicts or threatens imminent bodily harm upon the person threatened or upon any other person commits the offense of compelling a confession or information by force or threat.

(b) Sentence. Compelling a confession or information is a: (1) Class 4 felony if the defendant threatens imminent bodily harm to obtain a confession, statement, or information but does not inflict bodily harm on the victim, (2) Class 3 felony if the defendant inflicts bodily harm on the victim to obtain a confession, statement, or information, and (3) Class 2 felony if the defendant inflicts great bodily harm to obtain a confession, statement, or information.

Please Mr. President have this matter investigated and use the statements made by Mr. Cheney, "I was involved in the helping getting the process cleared. They talked to me as well as others. I supported them." as evidence in their criminal trials.

Christopher Hitchens on Water Torture

Whoa. Christopher Hitchens agrees to be drowned err... waterboarded and states unequivocally, Believe Me, It’s Torture.

From the article:

You may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it “simulates” the feeling of drowning. This is not the case. You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning—or, rather, being drowned, albeit slowly and under controlled conditions and at the mercy (or otherwise) of those who are applying the pressure.

Watch the video of Hitchens being tortured.

And Hitchens is given a code word and drop item to end the session. Our 'enemies' don't have that luxury.

And on the whole point of water torture extracting useful and reliable information. Do you think all the heretics tortured by the Inquistion were actually Witches?

Delving into the Water Cure

I've mentioned the American use of the Water Torture several times (here and here) in the Philippines. Well, Meet the New Boss because the CIA finally admitted the US Government is still using waterboarding (torture), today.

Paul Kramer has a detailed expose for The New Yorker on it's use 100 years ago:

Many Americans were puzzled by the news, in 1902, that United States soldiers were torturing Filipinos with water. The United States, throughout its emergence as a world power, had spoken the language of liberation, rescue, and freedom.

(With a Hat Tip to Brown over at Borrowed Suits)

Sound familiar? It should be frightening to the American People when their Government grants itself the latitude to torture people it deems "enemies" for the slope is slippery indeed..

Who next will become an "enemy" of the State to be taken away? And who next will be ordered to administer the torture?

While this post is filled with some over-the-top hyperbole (perhaps) the Government has often used violence to supress those deemed less than desirable. Recall: WTO Seattle, Kent State, The Bonus Army, Sacco and Vanzetti, Haymarket Square Chicago, Ludlow, Wounded Knee...

Waterboarding: An American Tradition since 1901!

The US used waterboarding in the Phillipines back in 1901. Of course back in 1903, they called it the "Water Cure":

The commonest form of torture was known as the "water cure," and it was so common that, on Bohol, toward the end of the war, people joked about getting it -- and then got it. It became, as its nickname suggests, a kind of liquid panacea, a cure for whatever you couldn't kill -- a cure for disloyalty, a cure for native "insolence," a cure for the insurrection -- that the army doled out like the shots for the small pox it also dispensed. Ostensibly, the "water cure" was used to elicit information. But the information it obtained was always suspect. And people died from it.

Testifying before Congress in 1903, Lt. Grover Flint gave a sanitized but still vivid account of the way that it worked:

A man is thrown down on his back and three or four men sit or stand on his arms and legs and hold him down; ...a carbine barrel or a stick as big as a belaying pin... is simply thrust into his jaws and his jaws are thrust back, and, if possible, a wooden log or stone is put under his head or neck, so he can be held more firmly. In the case of very old men I have seen their teeth fall out, -- and I mean when it was done a little roughly. He is simply held down and then water is poured onto his face down his throat and nose from a jar; and that is kept up until the man gives some sign or becomes unconscious. And then... he is simply... rolled aside rudely, so that water is expelled. A man suffers tremendously, there is no doubt about it. [S. Doc. 331, 57 Cong., 1 Sess. (1903), pp. 1767-1768]

Waterboarding is torture.

And it's frightening to read "Americans" (in reality FREEpers) support the practice. Or US Senator Kit Bond equate torture by drowning with swimming.

Hey Kit, would you have been happy if your son Sam had, "learned" to swim this way at Quantico? Or would it be okay if insurgents in Iraq used waterboarding on your son in Iraq? Because I don't think so, but I guess you would be fine with the insurgent freestyle...

Update:

Sam Stein at The Huffington Post exposes 30 Anti-American cowards against waterboarding. Strangely they all have General or Admiral before their name...

Opening Salvo

To start I'll use the words of Mark Twain:

I said to myself, here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a miniature of the American constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to take its place among the free nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to which we had addressed ourselves.

But I have thought some more, since then... and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem. ~ New York Herald [New York, 10/15/1900]

I wonder what Twain would make of the recent American Imperialist Adventure in Mesopotamia.

There are many parallels between Iraq and the Philippines:

Letters from soldiers documented the atrocities ("The howling wilderness of Samar"),

Between 250,000 and 1 million civilians were killed,

Water Torture was used on the Filipinos (this was eventually admitted to by future President William Howard Taft),

The only military strategy which could be imagined was to separate the civilian populace from the insurgents, this was accomplished by a scorched earth policy, ignoring the plight of the civilian population and the creation of concentration camps,

Journalists were heavily controlled and The War Department (since relabelled Department of Defense) issued reports asserting all manner of atrocities were being committed by the Filipinos in order to stem the growing anti-war sentiment of Americans,

Fighting continued until 1913 (even though as early as 1902 the War was considered won),

The Philippines gained their independence in 1946, but it wasn't until Nov. 24, 1992 the last US base closed at Subic Bay, a period of 94 years from the start of American involvement.

I think he would merely have quoted himself:
But now -- why, we have got into a mess, a quagmire from which each fresh step renders the difficulty of extrication immensely greater. I'm sure I wish I could see what we were getting out of it, and all it means to us as a nation. ~ Returning Home, New York World [London, 10/6/1900