On The "Its Only 5% Argument"

I keep hearing jack asses like Joke Line downgrading the public option because it only will be available to 5% of the country. Now admittedly if I had my druthers I would want that percentage higher if not a total single payer system. But lets keep some real perspective about this. In real numbers that is 15 million people or more. 15 million people. And those 15 million are by and in large the folks who really need health care the most.

Think about that for a second. A study came out a few weeks back that said 40,000 people die every year from a lack of health care. Now how many of those 40,000 come out of the 15 MILLION that would have access to the public option do you think?

Let me put it in analagous terms. If there was a product on the market that was killing 40,000 people a year against theiri will but didn't affect the rest of us would you think it would be ok for the government not to address that? If there was a product on the market that put 15 Million people a year at risk of not only loss of life but loss of lively hood with bankruptcy and financial ruin, do you think it would be ok for the government to turn a blind eye?

I know we live in a "I got mine" society but surely most people give a damn about 15 million American citizens among us.........don't they?

Also go read this

More Is Less

As I watched this TYT clip with Cenk Uygur discussing the disgusting and despicable Liz Cheney who appeared on FauxNooz I remembered a part of the Soufan testimony from earlier today.




Now one of the contentions she made on FoxNews was that by limiting interrogators to following the Army Field Manual somehow President Obama was making us less safe by allowing terrorist to know what was coming should we capture them. But check out what Soufan had to say about this issue.

The harsh technique method doesn't use the knowledge we have of the detainee's history, mindset, vulnerabilities, or culture, and instead tries to subjugate the detainee into submission through humiliation and cruelty. The approach applies a force continuum, each time using harsher and harsher techniques until the detainee submits.

The idea behind the technique is to force the detainee to see the interrogator as the master who controls his pain. It is an exercise in trying to gain compliance rather than eliciting cooperation. A theoretical application of this technique is a situation where the detainee is stripped naked and told: "Tell us what you know."

If the detainee doesn't immediately respond by giving information, for example he asks: "what do you want to know?" the interviewer will reply: "you know," and walk out of the interrogation room. Then the next step on the force continuum is introduced, for example sleep deprivation, and the process will continue until the detainee's will is broken and he automatically gives up all information he is presumed to know.

There are many problems with this technique.

A major problem is that it is ineffective. Al Qaeda terrorists are trained to resist torture. As shocking as these techniques are to us, the al Qaeda training prepares them for much worse – the torture they would expect to receive if caught by dictatorships for example.

This is why, as we see from the recently released Department of Justice memos on interrogation, the contractors had to keep getting authorization to use harsher and harsher methods, until they reached waterboarding and then there was nothing they could do but use that technique again and again. Abu Zubaydah had to be waterboarded 83 times and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed 183 times. In a democracy there is a glass ceiling of harsh techniques the interrogator cannot breach, and a detainee can eventually call the interrogator's bluff.

The truth is as Soufan pointed out that the terrorists train for shit that would never under any circumstances be legal even in Dick Cheney's world for us to do to them. And because they know this then when we torture them we actually give them the upper hand. So unless the pro torture crowd is prepared to go the full Syrian and break out the thumbscrews and pull out fingernails doing "harsh interrogation" probably does more harm than good in terms of trying to keep us safe. It would help if somebody in the media would point this out.

Here's What They Think About You

Tom Ricks posted a letter sent to Charles Krauthammer in response to his pro torture argument in the Washington Post. The important thing about this letter is that its from a member of the military.

Mr. Krauthammer,

I don't usually make a point of responding to the talking-head proselytizers in my Sunday paper but your column prompted me to do so.

I'll make this simple. There are NO circumstances under which torture is acceptable. Jack Bauer's "24" makes for great TV but even in a ticking timebomb situation such behavior is inappropriate and illegal. Torture is counter to our moral code, a violation of the Geneva and Hague conventions to which we subscribe and perhaps least understood, but most significantly, counterproductive and ineffective. Nothing else really needs to be said, but if you want more details read on.

snip

So you must wonder, by what authority is this letter writer speaking? Well, as a Lieutenant Colonel and Combat Arms Battalion Commander in the Army I am responsible for the welfare, training, good order, and discipline of my soldiers. I am responsible for everything they do or fail to do. I am also responsible to follow and issue only those orders that are legal, ethical and moral. Torture of another human being is illegal, unethical and immoral, and I would be duty bound to disobey any such order...just as PFC Lynndie England and SPC Charles Graner (and their many counterparts, senior officers and NCOs at Abu Ghraib) should have done...just as any of my soldiers should disobey should I give such an order. We all have the lessons of Nuremburg to rely upon anytime such questions come to mind; "I was just following orders" is never justification for committing crimes against other human beings.

Before deploying to Iraq last year, I explained these things to my troopers. It is difficult to explain to young (practically) kids, with little experience, and poor knowledge of the world...but if you are caring and committed, and repeat yourself often enough they learn and understand. I told them the most important thing they needed to take away from all their preparations was that while it would be terrible to lose one of them or have one of them seriously physically injured, it would be worse to have them come home physically well and mentally broken because they had somehow lost their humanity. Torture destroys our humanity, and any equivocation (feel free to exercise the Kantian absolutist vs utilitarian argument to your heart's content) on the matter is just bullshit...

Strong stuff I must say.

In a similar vein former Governor of Minnesota and former Navy SEAL Jesse Ventura recently went on Larry King Live and had this to say about Dick Cheney.

VENTURA: No, I live in Mexico now, Larry. So I do a lot of reading. I don't watch much TV. This year's reading, I covered Bush's life. I covered Guantanamo and a few other subjects. And I'm very disturbed about it.

I'm bothered over Guantanamo because it seems we have created our own Hanoi Hilton. We can live with that? I have a problem. I will criticize President Obama on this level; it's a good thing I'm not president because I would prosecute every person that was involved in that torture. I would prosecute the people that did it. I would prosecute the people that ordered it. Because torture is against the law.

KING: You were a Navy SEAL.

VENTURA: That's right. I was water boarded, so I know -- at SERE School, Survival Escape Resistance Evasion. It was a required school you had to go to prior to going into the combat zone, which in my era was Vietnam. All of us had to go there. We were all, in essence -- every one of us was water boarded. It is torture.

KING: What was it like?

VENTURA: It's drowning. It gives you the complete sensation that you are drowning. It is no good, because you -- I'll put it to you this way, you give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.

KING: Even though you know it's not going to happen -- even though before it, you know you're not going to drown.

VENTURA: You don't know it. If it's -- if it's done wrong, you certainly could drown. You could swallow your tongue. You could do a whole bunch of stuff. If it's it done wrong or -- it's torture, Larry. It's torture.

[.....]

KING: A lot of things to go into, Jesse. What do you make of the Cheney/Limbaugh --

VENTURA: I don't have a lot of respect for Dick Cheney. Here's a guy who got five deferments from the Vietnam War. Clearly, he's a coward. He wouldn't go when it was his time to go. And now he is a chicken hawk. Now he is this big tough guy who wants this hardcore policy. And he's the guy that sanctioned all this torture by calling it enhanced interrogation.

KING: Do you think Rush Limbaugh's a better Republican than Colin Powell?

VENTURA: No, not at all. In fact, if you compare the two, let's look at Colin Powell, who's a war hero, who strapped it on for his country, and didn't run and hide.

KING: Twice.

VENTURA: And then you look at Dick Cheney who ran and hid. I have no respect for Dick Cheney. I have tremendous respect for General Powell.

I think its safe to say that many of the people who have actually and or are actually putting their lives on the line for this country do not support the pro torture crowd.