Paul Krugman: "people who ruled us these past 8 years... monsters"

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

Back from a partly medical absence. Before I do some economics posts, I think I ought to say something about the torture memos — namely, that there is now no way to view the people who ruled us these past 8 years as anything but monsters. We had all these rationalizations of torture over the “ticking clock” and all that — then we learn, for example, that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in one month.

I really don’t even want to think about all this. But this was our government — and these people might be back.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/183/

[Skittles]

1. and if they are not held accountable

they shall return

[tosh]

3. without a doubt

[yardwork]

27. Yes.

[TheEuclideanOne]

52. Yes, and in the future all forms of torture will be allowed, Waterboarding will seem tame

in comparison. After all, if it gets terrorists to speak and reveals valuable information, then it is justified, right. :sarcasm: Remember, it might save American lives. Why stop at Waterboarding, why not cut off limbs? I bet if a terrorist had their fingers, toes or arms cut off, it would surely make them talk eventually. Why not attack their families? If you wife, daughter or son was being tortured, it might make you talk and save American lives.

You can even use the famous justification.... if you knew that a nuclear device was going to explode and the only way you could stop it would be to torture a terrorist, would you? Of course I would, I would not want a bomb to go off that could kill Millions of Americans. In fact, you can justify any form of torture and justify it.

By refusing to even investigate something so blatant, you set the precedent to allow it to happen again.

[edc]

56. Absolutely Right

but just how would you know if a terrorist knew where a nuclear bomb was going to detonate if you didn't already know for certain that he knew and wasn't willing to talk? And if you didn't know that (and I don't know how you would with any certainty), then torturing him would merely persuade him to say whatever he thought you wanted to hear. If you'd already let him know you were looking for a nuke, he'd certainly tell you where to look for one, even though he didn't know, just to make you stop for a while. Wouldn't he? Torture is rarely used to gain information. It's primary purpose is and always has been to beat confessions out of people.

[TheEuclideanOne]

57. Sorry but I have to correct you on this.

There are existing cases of valid information and confessions coming from torture. And that is from a reliable source... Dick Cheney.

[edc]

60. I stand humbly corrected

[grantcart]

2. agreed it wasn't waterboarding it was waterboarding on steroids combined

with the ethical oversight of professional wrestling.

How would you like to be the guy that has to come in and clean up after all of this?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

4. An independent Counsel strikes me as the cleanest solution

Ideally, our existing system should be used as much as possible.

If an IC under current statutes can't handle it, then something else. But I'd prefer that the system work, as ill-equipped as it might be for some of the particulars.

And to everyone who say my Special Prosecutor poll, I apologize for not remembering that the SP laws don't exist anymore.

[Cleita]

5. Monsters is too kind of a word.

These are criminals no different than any mafioso or drug cartel lord and using some of the same enforcement techniques. They should be serving time for crimes already committed besides torturing. As far as the torture, they are in violation of a treaty we signed and I hope some international court nails them if our own leaders won't.

[joshcryer]

8. Doh, see my reply, I think what you wrote got in my head.

Heh

[glitch]

15. They are worse than mafioso or drug cartels. They rank somewhere around serial killers. nt

[Enthusiast]

44. And their offshore bank

accounts are ready to burst at the seams.

[Babel_17]

6. these people might be back

spot-on, this is the danger.

[joshcryer]

7. Monsters is treating them kindly.

They're beyond monsters.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Median Democrat]

19. So, If Obama Is Worse Than Bush, Are You Arguing For The Impeachment Of Obama?

Or, are you also being impeachophobic?

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Median Democrat]

30. Perhaps You Can Form A Coalitiion With The Teabaggers - Unity Between The RW and LW

With a common purpose of impeaching President Obama. It is one way to unite the country in common purpose, as both liberals and conservatives attempt to impeach President Obama.

Indeed, if you want to impeach President Obama, you should work toward the election of Republican members in Congress for 2010, since they have no problem ignoring the will of the people, and pushing for impeachment on most anything.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[islandgirl808]

10. ice must run through their veins

the psychology of this whole thing is mind-blowing.

[Sequoia]

43. And that's giving ice a bad name.

More like dry ice since it burns your hand and throws up a smoke screen when wet.

[lunatica]

11. So someone who molds public opinion finally uses a bold word to

describe the acceptance and promotion of torture. Monster. No cleaned up euphemism, or substituting gentler words for such gross and brutish assaults. Millions will now see that Krugman wrote this and the word is now out there. Not just in here among those of us who don't have much power.

This is progress. Language is everything as we've painfully learned during the Bush administration. Rarely have we heard or read words of truth and fact in the last few years. Words have been twisted too much and too long. The word 'monster' fits.

[AlbertCat]

40. Earlier didn't he call Delay and Cheney monsters?

...or at least "horrible People". Didn't he write that earlier?


Yeah....."The Monster Years"....Delay, Rove, Cheney....


http://clipmarks.com/clipmark/65434AB3-B2A7-4A48-BF08-1D93E3B8E1E0/

[Hekate]

12. KnR. Most of the time Krugman is so right -- and this is one of those times. nt

[pat_k]

13. Here's the comment I submitted. . .

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

“might be back” ?!?

The CIA employees who subjected captives to torture are Still There — and their presence stains every agent, law abiding or not. The CIA’s image has now returned to the “bad old days.”

Bybee is on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Refusal to prosecute torturers trumps any rhetoric about “banning” such atrocities. By harboring war criminals, leaving them in positions of power, and even praising their “good faith” efforts, Obama is doing more damage to this nation than Bush ever could.

Criminals can’t destroy a nation. Only the dereliction and corruption of the enforcers can do that.
— patk_nj

[Klukie]

14. great comment....

:fistbump:

[glitch]

17. Really well said. Allowing the gangrene to remain means the body will eventually die.

It's one thing to be the infection, we expect infections to be infections. We expect much more from antibodies.

[Raksha]

35. Absolutely true!!!

Re Criminals can’t destroy a nation. Only the dereliction and corruption of the enforcers can do that.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

16. had we not just decided krugman was the enemy?

i cant keep up with his level of fickleness :P

[No More Bushbots]

37. Depends on what the "hive" mentality is.

:rofl:

[Vidar]

18. K&R.

[tblue37]

21. Yes, I know that the Bush administration acted like dictators, so we

were in fact "ruled," but it really pisses me off when the executive branch of the federal government is said to "rule" us. They are not kings and nobles, though obviously they tend to think they are. They are suppsoed to be representing and serving us, not "ruling" us!

[Imagevision]

22. Monsters? - I was thinking "traitors" were be more appropriate...

[TacticalPeek]

23. 183 = every four hours for thirty days and a wake-up.

I can almost see the prescription from the collaborating medical professionals: once every four hours, not to exceed 6 in 24 hours unless ordered by CG.

Rat bastards.

[valerief]

31. As long as pre-emptive war is an option, torture will be, too. We are a land of

Lip Service Only.

[horseshoecrab]

24. "monsters"

The word is direct, powerful and chillingly accurate.


horseshoecrab

[harun]

26. No interrogator interviewed has said torturing even gets good info.

The person just says anything to make it stop. 183 times wasn't for info, it was just to punish.

Now we know why the press reports last week from the administration saying they were not going to prosecute CIA employees. With this news coming out the public is going to be outraged. At least the non-freeper public.

[Raksha]

36. It was probably done to force him to sign a fake confession.

Torture is known to be very effective for that. That's why the Viet Cong tortured John McCain, also a "high-value detainee" from their POV.

That is, if it wasn't done out of sheer brutality and sadism, to punish him for being a terrorist. Or maybe for both reasons.

MONSTERS!!!

[olegramps]

28. Just what type of person would actually do this to other humans?

I wonder how many declined, if any, to actually do these things to their fellow mankind. Just what kind of people are they recruiting? Do they pass some sadist test before being accepted into the ranks?

I just don't know how people could still want to be part of an organization that agreed to follow these orders. How can these people even sleep at night unless they have the conscience of Josep Mengele? How can they subscribe to a concept that the ends justify the means?

What kind of kids were they? Were they Bush's playmates that stuffed firecracker up frogs rears and blew them up for entertainment? They sound like a pack of sociopaths. How many people would be proud to have one of these jackals for a son?

This is what really disturbs me the most about this. To think that we have not only raised these "monsters" but that so many actually commend them as some type of heros who are protecting the "Father Land." Pretty damn sick.

[depakid]

29. "these people might be back"

And from the way it looks, they'd feel free to torture again. Like the Wall Street crowd will fel free to continue with thier discreditied practices.

That's what happens when an administration is too cowardly to uphold the rule of law and and bring back some semblance of accountability.

Next time around, it'll be even worse.

[ThisThreadIsSatire]

32. Have you read KSM's 'confession'?

Talk about someone just telling them what they wanted to hear!

I do appreciate the 'intelligence' they gleaned from it though -- especially when he confessed to stealing my bike when I was 12, as well anything else bad that may have happened to any American between 1968 and 2002.

[ProgressiveFool]

50. come to think of it, wasn't there a time that it was a joke?

I seem to recall it being used as a joke on late night TV that KSM had confessed to such things as stealing Easter Eggs and being Britney Spears' Agent and silly stuff like that. Little did we know then.

[Maven]

33. YUP

[Wapsie B]

34. If we will not prosecute each and every one of these people

then arrest them and send them to the Hague.

[irislake]

38. Who can think of Cheney without a shudder?

Shudder! Shudder! Shudder!

[bdamomma]

39. he hit the nail on the head.

"these people might be back", of course they will, if they are not held accountable they will just come back to finish what they have started, they are regrouping now, and will strike again.

[Gator_Matt]

41. Too much power for the CIA

It really seems as though the CIA has the President by the balls. No one wants to cross them, but what I can't understand is why they can't be bypassed in order to prosecute the likes of Rumsfeld et al.

[SurfingScientist]

42. k&r!!! (n/t)

[MNDemNY]

45. I would think...

that after the 80th or so time, it would just be annoying. Given these numbers, it is obvious this does NOT work.

[polichick]

46. "Monsters" seems tame imo.

[XXXMADAM]

47. Monster PIMPS!!

http://fbicorruption.250free.com

They burned Waco Davidian babies long before then went off back-patting each other in congradulations for burning these babies. Absolutely zero conscience to what had actually happened before their own eyes by their own hands, totally clueless, only back-pats and pay raises were on their minds. Waco babies still smoldering they came to my home in Houston, my escort service for Sex, to elicit hookers to Sextort "State and political officials". ATF, FBI, CIA, military, etc... Babies burning, Alabama madam hanging in Tom Delay's federal jail cell.

My fear was what would've happened to Americans if 9/11 never happened. ??
9/11 caused a distraction and all focus/money was realigned from their original plan in the U.S. - whatever it was. Eerie.
Prisons were springing up like wild flowers all across the U.S., literal death camps to many medical cases.

What would've happened if 9/11 never occurred? We may find out ... next time.

[XXXMADAM]

55. Waco Davidian babies burning...

Waco Davidian babies burning...

These agents indeed carry a stench on them I have never been able to describe it but the smell had a strange physical effect on me
like it knocked my knees out from under me to where I could hardly walk to the kitchen/bathroom. Surreal. ATF, FBI, CIA and others in disguise, undercover and being very friendly actually.

Venezuela's Chavez said it smells like "sulfur". To me it smelled like burned babies smoldering, acting more like a nerve gas or something like as if my bones could smell it. Weird. Death and evil at the same time and they were wanting wholesale Sex via my escort service in Houston, Texas. This had a definite smell to it for real. Not of this planet, not at all of this planet.

[ChiciB1]

48. Gee, I Wish I Could Place A Bet On Which Way Things Will Go Down...

I might get very RICH! This country has been bought and sold and I'd bet money... WE ARE THE PAWNS!!!

Democracy??? What a novel idea!!!!

[Christa]

49. K & R nt

[davidwparker]

51. Just like Iran/Contra

[Starry Messenger]

53. Absolutely.

The worst kind of evil. The kind that operates under cover of "law".

[ecstatic]

54. and if Krugman has his way, they'll be back in 2012

:eyes:

[ProgressIn2008]

58. The question: what do we call political elites who protect monsters, I wonder? nt

[amborin]

59. glad to see you've started reading K's blog...