Obama In Dresden

No thanks. Think I'll just trust Steve Benen's judgement on this.

Michael-Hope you are having a great trip and thanks for the reports. As and aside is there some rule that re reporters to report on critics complaints just because they complain? If so it should be recinded.

Having visited Dresden in 1995 when the Frauenkirche consisted of numbered, cataloged, piles of rubble in a vacant lot next to the church's foundation, it is nothing short of miraculous that the church is, once again, whole.
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The power of hope, faith, and perseverance. Not a bad message for an American to share with the world.

I think I heard that something like 20% (or maybe more) of Yale's recent graduates didn't know what caused the seasons to change on the Earth. Somehow I think the historic significance of Dresden will have less impact than a power tie in the general political balance.
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If you believe in the high ideals of torture and if you believe Obama is actually apologizing rather than simply lamenting the waste of war (and trying to tighten up his flight schedule) then you didn't vote for him and you wouldn't vote for him and your opinions change nothing.

Here is one case where I will say Scherer did a good thing. When there is misinformation floating out there our media SHOULD push back with the truth. Thats one thing I have consistently called for and whether its Mike Scherer that does it or Steve Benen they should be praised for doing so. So thanks Scherer for correcting the record over yet another round of bullsh*t from the wingnuts.

centfan-

I'm not trying to be combative, however, most people (conservatives included) do not 'believe in high ordeals of torture.' Instead, we disagree as to what constitutes torture. For example, the fact that so many activists have waterboarded one another in front of the Supreme Court and other federal buildings sort of takes the credibility out of the argument that it is actually torture. While it may be a hellish and terrifying ordeal, it is not torture. Whether it is effective or not is another matter entirely. And I am sorry, but putting a non-poisonous insect in a cell with a detainee is similarly not torture, by any stretch of the imagination.
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While I respect the opinion that these heightened interrogation tactics may be ineffective, the left's attempts to frame the debate around 'torture' and label conservative as defenders of torture is patently disingenuous.

neorational
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Have you been waterboarded? If not the STFU until you do. Every person that has been waterboarded has said its torture. So maybe you need to experience it for yourself before you have any standing to say it isn't.
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That's besides the historical legal precedents.

Oh pipe down, take a Xanax and chill. Activists are not torturing one another on the steps of federal court houses to make a point. Get a grip of reality, lose the silly infantile diatribes, and accept that world is a messy and often painful place.

For example, the fact that so many activists have waterboarded one another in front of the Supreme Court and other federal buildings sort of takes the credibility out of the argument that it is actually torture.
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First I've heard about this. Links? Photos? Other evidence?
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accept that world is a messy and often painful place.
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I don't "accept" that the world is a messy and often painful place, I do things in an effort to make it less so. Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless, that sort of thing. "Silly infantile diatribes" indeed.
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Are you a responsible grown-up, or just pretending? Get your ass in gear, tiger.

Last line should read
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Are you a responsible grown-up, or just pretending? Get your ass in gear, tiger.

Oddly enough, neo, I didn't say you believed in torture. I didn't even define torture. If someone (not necessarily you) personally believes that waterboarding or hooking up somebody to a car battery IS torture but IS good for America because whatever an American does to a towel head is AOkay then you believe in the "high ideals of torture" and I'm talking about you. Defining the limits of torture or when the line is crossed is entirely different.
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I am willing to acknowledge how some people might consider any physical distress that doesn't cause permanent PHYSICAL damage as "non-torture". Some people call killing an abortion doctor "non-murder". We can only depend on the legal definition to protect and save us all.
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So anyway, if I drag someone's child out of a room while holding a knife, close the door behind me so the parent can't see, make the child scream in fear (with no physical contact), and then throw a piece of someone's dead body (that died naturally) out in front of the parent and call it the remains of their child is that torture? I have physically damaged no one.
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If I stalk someone day and night and verbally threaten them is that illegal? Why?

Friar-

Here is a link to a Photoessay on activists proesting waterboarding...
http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1901024_1890786,00.html
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What I meant by the 'messy and painful place' was not to suggest we should ignore suffering, but that there are much more important battles to fight than to belligerently assault waterboarding as torture. Its a pointless argument and a distraction from real issues.
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"silly infantile diatribes" in that I was told to shut the f*ck up because I do not necessarily think that waterboarding, which the pictures in the link illustrate have been carried out by activists, constitutes torture.

neorationalist
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Are you going to get waterboarded to prove it isn't torture?
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Thought not.

As an example, here's a link to Operation Inasmuch, a cooperative effort between South Carolina Baptists and Lutherans for an all-out day of service across the state this past month:
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http://www.sclutheran.org/inasmuch.htm
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It was a smashing success and is going into the regular schedule the SC Synod of the ELCA (This body includes the vast majority of Lutherans not in the Missouri or Wisconsin Synods). The Baptists have been had this kind of thing on their calendar for a while.
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Obviously, you don't need to be a Christian (even in the South) to refuse to "accept" that [the] world is a messy and often painful place. You just need Google - or, if you're old-school, a telephone book. Somebody out there is worse off than you are.

Clarification: The ELCA includes the vast majority, not the South Carolina Synod!

centfan-

I will concede that there is physical AND psychological torture. I will further state my views that what IS considered torture is NOT acceptable, regardless of who it is inflicted upon and regardless of for what motives.
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However, I will also note that anything that causes psychological duress does not necessarily equal psychological torture. You mention several extreme circumstances, which I would be in agreement with you on. However, there are numerous instances that would clearly not be torture. Putting an insect in a detainee's cell because he has a fear of insects is NOT torture. Its is psychological pressure to lessen resistance. We could go back and forth all day with extreme circumstances, but that will get us nowhere. I am mostly in agreement with you. I just believe that the GITMO allegations of torture have been blown wildly out of proportion.

sgwhiteinfal...

While there is no way to prove to you that I would be willing to go through as much, I am honestly unopposed to the notion. I don't see how it is possible via an internet discussion for me to illustrate this, though, and thus your challenge is really quite unrealistic and irrelevant.

Would you be willing to be waterboarded to prove that it IS torture?

Come on, now, don't be silly....

For the purposes of legal liability, the defintion of torture is here:
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http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/usc_sup_01_18_10_I_20_113C.html
(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality; and
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It's pretty difficult to declare that what we euphemistically refer to as 'simulated drowning' is not a threat of imminent death.
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It's because the law is so succinct and clear, that the OLC was tasked with writing extensive prose in order to circumvent the it.
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Waterboading is clearly torture under the law as drafted.
Nothing else matters.

sgw, gotta go with neo on this one. Remember the old phrase, "on the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog?"
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As an example, there's a pastor out in southern Colorado who has "friartuck" as part of the name of his website, and he's not even approximately me! This didn't cause a problem until our church's Sunday School coordinator linked to something at his site, which woefully confused folks who think I "am" Friar Tuck (nickname comes from my roundish body, beard, and love for teh brandy).

And by the way, systematic sleep deprivation is clearly a procedure calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personalityand is as powerful as any phychoactive drug.
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These questions are not within the realm of debate or "reasonable people disagreeing"
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Which is precisely why they will never find their way into a courtroom and why Obama is following in GWB's footstep to protect the CIA.

neorationalist86 says-
"For example, the fact that so many activists have waterboarded one another in front of the Supreme Court and other federal buildings sort of takes the credibility out of the argument that it is actually torture."
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As evidence neorationalist86 links to this story.
"An activist group calling itself World Can't Wait enlists actors to carry out a *mock* waterboarding in the heart of Manhattan."
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Honestly.

Michael;
Care to enlighten us about why you chose to call out an extremist zero-cred blog instead of Mitt Romney on the "Apology Tour" terminology? Please tell us you're not worrying about an invite to the '12 barbecue.

Oopsie. That first colon shouldn't have been semi. I blame presbyopia. Or José Cuervo.

Friar Tuck
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Notice I only asked him if he is WILLING or if he HAD been waterboarded to prove his contention. There is no way of knowing if he would actually follow through, but how telling is it that he won't even, on the intertubes, commit to being waterboarded?
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See this is key because if you go all the way back up and look at his argument he says that because activists have staged mock waterboardings in front of the WH then that "proves" that it isn't torture. He holds that up as proof that his position is right. He doesn't argue on a legal basis so there is no need to argue him there, where he would invariably lose. So if he is basing his whole argument over his perception of what happens when activists do it, then why would he be unwilling to commit to having it done to himself. Especially when he and you rightly point out that even if he said he would do it but declined to there would be no way for us to know.
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Its because he know he is afraid of having it done to him and that fear is so strong as to prevent him from even lying about it to a stranger on a blog. And if he fears being waterboarded that much then that in and of itself puts lie to the notion that its not torture.
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I don't really give a sh*t if he gets waterboarded or not, but I am not going to let him come here and just insult our intelligence.

Hold up, Paul, Not that One.

These demonstrations were mot 'mock.' They fully conducted the waterboarding, carrying the procedure as it is often described. Furthermore, this was not one group, this has been done by multiple groups not just in the heart of Manhattan, but at federal courts, the Supreme Court in DC, and Congressional offices. To dismiss these as merely 'mock' simulations not bearing the full resemblance to actual waterbaording is a farce.
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sgwhite...
"how telling is it that he won't even, on the intertubes, commit to being waterboarded?" I said I would be willing to go through the procedure, my words being "I am honestly unopposed" to going through the ordeal myself. But, again, this is irrelevant and moot, in that whether or not I would allow myself to be waterboarded is in no way linked to whether or not it is torture.
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Paul. Would threat of the death penalty if convicted count as "threat of imminent death?" Is that torture?
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Just because someone thinks they may die, does not make it torture.