" But Kersey, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about. Isn't that what you right wingers always say when you're justifying totalitarian police-state spying on U.S. citizens?
So Kersey, in a debate about the use of torture, whom do you think is more likely to be morally right -- the people who are opposing its use, or the people who are cheerleaders for it? "

" The prison guards jailed for torturing inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq are planning to appeal their convictions on the ground that recently released CIA torture memos prove that they were scapegoats for Bush.
Do you want to cover all that up, too, Kersey? Do you patriotically and heroically support the troops so fervently that you like to see U.S. troops imprisoned just to cover up the crimes of their corrupt, cowardly commanders? Wouldn't surprise me a bit. "

" The prison guards did wrong, but I think they were told what to do. Except for in the field, soldiers don't make a whole lot of decisions for themselves.

As far as war goes, it is horrible and terrible, I pray my children never hate to experience it, however, when you fight a war, you should fight to win. We should have sent twice as many troops and not let the media in for 6 months, both wars would have been over long ago. "

" I disagree, if we don't allow for people to see whats war like then you Romanticize war. War is disgusting attursion to the person, the people involved and the soul. Most of the insurgents do not have portable tvs, they don't know troop movements, plus when its reported the fighting has begun. Adding more, I have never seen a newscaster sit and describe the area on a local detailed map talking about a flanking manuver. "

" I have never seen a newscaster sit and describe the area on a local detailed map talking about a flanking manuver.


Never watched Geraldo huh?

War is disgusting attursion to the person, the people involved and the soul.

Sorry, you confuse me with the word soul. "

" "Our enemies do not stand for any moral laws, international or sovereign states."

So when WE torture for the good ol USA, it's because we are moral and are not breaking international law?

"we do not beat our wife to submit."

Boy, all the women at local safe houses hiding from their beating husbands/boyfriends/fathers would LOVE to know this!!!

"So for the federal judge and ACLU, stop helping our enemies in the name of American freedom and right to know."

Right to know what there, Dave? That we torture our prisoners? Maybe the ACLU is trying to actually protect our soldiers by getting our govt to STOP atrocities being done in our name so the enemy doesn't have an excuse for revenge on our solders. Torture doesn't accomplish anything! It only gets the one who's being tortured to say whatever the torturer wants to get the torture to stop. We should NEVER torture, anyone, for any reason! It accomplishes NOTHING and just gives our enemies an excuse to torture OUR SOLDIERS!!! You don't think that when our prisoners, who were tortured, and then released, don't run and tell everything that was done to them? If YOU don't want to know Dave, bury your head in the sand and watch Jerry Springer. But when torture is done in my name, I WANT TO KNOW!!! "

" Also Dave, are you wanting to omit our 1st Amendment? You know, the one about Freedom of the Press? It's there for a reason. So when/if our govt gets too big for their britches the press can let us know (supposedly) without repurcussions. You really want to start gutting our Constitution too Dave? "

" So because I'm not a christian, I don't have a soul or believe in the idea of a soul? Medic, I'm not an atheist, I believe in a god and a soul. Just not a christo-judo version. I believe that "God" created the universe and left it alone, knowning life would evolve. Technically, I'm a deist if that pleases you. I mean not the electric board that shows a map of say Afghanistan. I mean the exact longitude and latitude of exactly where its happening. "

" Dave....what a load of crap! "

" The problem as far as I am concerned is not about the reporting of a war, but in how it is reported. Regardless of what they say, very few news outlets, if any, are truly fair and balanced. They always slant things to how they want something to appear, and often only report on what they want to report on that will serve their particular cause.

Granted it is hard not to let your personal feelings get in the way of your writing, but it is pretty easy to spot when the attempt is made and when it is not.

News has become more about ratings and entertainment than about facts. If the news agencies want to report on the war, fine, but they should have the professionalism to report on all of it, just like they should report all sides of any issue. "

" Also Dave, are you wanting to omit our 1st Amendment? You know, the one about Freedom of the Press? It's there for a reason.


And does not exstend to other countries and war zones for safety reasons. "

" They always slant things to how they want something to appear

Of course, only Fox gets accused of that. "

" No, jim, it's about AMERICAN TORTURE. That always seems to slip the right wingers' attention somehow. Thanks to their pals Bush and Cheney, America is now a NATION of TORTURERS. "

" Bush and the Republicans waged a long campaign against journalism denouncing it, infiltrating it, faking it, extorting it, distorting it, planting prostitutes in it and telling every manner of lie about it.
Spring-boarding off right-wing radio ranting, in 1996 a propaganda TV news channel, Fox News, became the Pravda of the Bush White House.
Even Bush Press Secretary Scott McClellan admitted that corporate media reporters had willingly rolled over for the Bush lies that caused war.
The rescue of Private Jessica, the "enemy attack" slaying of Pat Tillman, the fall of Saddams statue, the Iraq WDMs all were lies planted in the news by the Bush administration.
To fake news, they added fake journalists. They bribed columnists. Local TV stations aired propaganda generated by Bush PR hacks that the stations pretended had been prepared by real reporters.
The $200-an-hour male prostitute named "Jeff Gannon," a/k/a James Guckert, was able to get daily access to the White House press briefings for two years while working for a hack right-wing "news service."
"You couldn't find a more revealing measure of the state of the dominant media today than the continuing ubiquitous presence - on the air and in print - of the very pundits and experts, self-selected 'message multipliers' of a disastrous foreign policy, who got it all wrong in the first place," Bill Moyers said. "

" I personally think a lot of people are confused about what torture really is. Scaring the crap out of someone is not torture. None of those detainees suffered any physical injuries. They were scared into thinking that they would, which is not the same thing by any stretch of the imagination. "

" Soldier, waterboarding -- pouring water into the lungs of helpless victims -- has been called the water torture since the middle ages, and we executed Japanese soldiers for performing it. Your commander in chief has identified it as torture. His name isn't Rush Limbaugh, by the way. It's Barack Obama.
Here are two quotations from the UN Convention on Torture, signed by President Ronald Reagan: "Torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted" and "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture."
We managed to survive a couple of hundred years in this nation without legalizing torture -- until you right-wing cowards came along, soiling yourselves in panic over a half-dozen Saudis armed with box cutters. "

" " No, jim, it's about AMERICAN TORTURE. That always seems to slip the right wingers' attention somehow. Thanks to their pals Bush and Cheney, America is now a NATION of TORTURERS. "

======================================
Oh gee.....and here all this time I thought the original letter was about how military actions did not belong on the news. "

" Jim1969 wrote on May 5, 2009 7:26 AM:
" " No, jim, it's about AMERICAN TORTURE. That always seems to slip the right wingers' attention somehow. Thanks to their pals Bush and Cheney, America is now a NATION of TORTURERS. "

======================================
Oh gee.....and here all this time I thought the original letter was about how military actions did not belong on the news. """""


good grief.....don't you have a dodgeball game or something to be playing? "

" Your reading comprehension is way off, Jim. The letter is attacking the ACLU for forcing the release of the American torture memos, and defending the American torturers on the grounds that they do not chop off people's arms (so far, as far as we know). "

" Just a Soldier wrote on May 4, 2009 9:22 PM:

" I personally think a lot of people are confused about what torture really is. Scaring the crap out of someone is not torture"

So soldier, why did we hang some Japanese soldiers for war crimes (torture) for waterboarding after WWII? What has changed between now and then.

Oh yeah, WE'RE THE AGGRESSORS THIS TIME!
So if our enemy does it, HANG EM.
But if we do it, it's justified.

Do you see how silly these comments are trying to legalize waterboarding? Up until Bush/Cheney it was illegal. And it STILL is. "

" The right-wingers have seen the bloody, historic ruin that has been caused by the insane policies for which they shouted their support. The United States still stands at the brink of moral and economic disaster, thanks to the worst presidential administration in history, headed by a vicious, vacuous moron whose every garbled utterance was defended by the right wingers.
Just look at these tea partying fools now, still squawking pathetically about liberals and Democraps and cut and run. Theyre like chickens in the slaughterhouse, feverishly searching for somebody weaker they can peck to death as a way to distract themselves before the inevitable ax falls. "

" So soldier, why did we hang some Japanese soldiers for war crimes (torture) for waterboarding after WWII? What has changed between now and then.


You know Becky, that's a darn good point. So far none of the torture defenders have been willing to address that point, but I'm glad to see it brought up again.

I've expressed this point before, but I'll bring it up again: our government should be better than the radical terrorists, and torture is not something I want our government doing. The former VP is running around trying to salvage the Bush/Cheney legasy and is trying to justify it, but I don't think the majority of folks agree with him. "

" But I should have added every right wing kook in the country is probably buying it. Hell, they even think he was a great VP. "

" Well Harry, why don't you ask some American POW's from Japan what their definition of torture is. Ask them if they would have preferred to be waterboarded, but have ample food and medical care or have been starved, beaten, and used as slave labor as they were. Ask the Chinese, Korean, and Philipino WWII survivors about how the Japanese treated them. Maybe we could even resurrect that poor Iraqi interpreter that I encountered who had powerdrill holes throughout his body, all the skin burned off his back, and his testicles in his mouth. I wonder what his definition of torture would be? "

" Actually Harry I think top Bush officials are scared that they will be tried for war crimes if not here than in some other international court. They aren't trying to save their reputations, they are trying to save their necks. I think Obama is going to find himself forced into a position of trying them here or letting/having them be tried by some other country. "

" While Dave Kersey constantly brings up the ACLU and them getting certain documents released that dealt with the torture issue in his attempt to make his point (and is rather all over the place trying to do it) he seems to be really talking about every thing the military does in trying to accomplish its mission being made public knowledge. His letter is not really about the use of torture in a specific sense, that is just the example he attempted to use. "