U.S. to continue extraordinary rendition to continue: why?

heretic on 25/8/2009 at 19:41

Quote Posted by Starrfall

It also smacks of the old "republicans and democrats are the same" thing and we all know how well THAT line of thinking has served us in the past. Poorly. Very poorly.

Resultant power..particularly in the US, is entrenched in economics and put forth through corporations. The differences between the two major parties exist as competition between competing ruling class blocs. These ruling class blocs are motivated by greed, not political ideology. Such ideology is our poison.

Morte on 25/8/2009 at 19:56

Quote Posted by Starrfall

My complaint is more that Obama is unquestionably better on this stuff and yet he is treated worse from BOTH sides either because he isn't filling the world with unicorns and rainbows or because he's trying to.

And I think the trend of saying YOU DIDN'T DO ENOUGH YOU SUUUUCK rather than "that's good but we can and should do better" actually discourages progress (because what is the incentive to take any further steps if the only consequence is getting shit on?) and as such I strongly disagree with it.

To use a somewhat goofy analogy it's like training a dog by beating it when it does something wrong instead of rewarding it when it does something right.

It also smacks of the old "republicans and democrats are the same" thing and we all know how well THAT line of thinking has served us in the past. Poorly. Very poorly.

That's true to an extent, but on the flip side of that, "better than" is not the same as good. A murderer doesn't get to claim some fucking moral high ground just because he's not John Wayne Gacy. Being less atrocious than someone else is not a badge of merit. Being good is.

Obama - so far, which is obviously important - is not good.

Less atrocious is of course not as bad as more atrocious, and that stuff matters, especially when there's so much power involved. Which is why the no difference between Democrats and Republicans is obvious bunk.

That said, I'm not surprised in the least by the way everyone is angry with him. Team Republican was always going to shriek and howl, he's not wearing their colors, so obviously they're going to oppose him no matter what his policies. And at the same time, Team Democrat is pissed because he's their guy, there by their mandate and not doing nearly enough of what he fucking well promised he'd do, in fact he's rapidly backtracking on a whole lot of it. Bush they never liked, and never had any illusions he gave a fuck what they thought.

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Closing Gitmo is proving to be a lot harder than Obama thought. If he tries to force the Gitmo detainees into places where they're not wanted, he's going to face a political backlash that will weaken his party and make it harder to get other priorities done. That's why we've been paying off other countries to take in some of the detainees. Continuing the renditions for now will prevent this problem from growing bigger.

Hey, why not just send them to Bagram? Last I heard, (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/11/bagram/) he's keeping it open, as well as the right to indefinitely detain people. Well, unless they're really sure they can get a guilty verdict. Then a trial might be ok. (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/07/08/obama/) But if they get a not guilty, you can still detain them. Show trials do give a veneer of legitimacy, after all.

D'Juhn Keep on 25/8/2009 at 21:33

Quote Posted by Ostriig

Not to argue with your general point, but your analogy isn't so much goofy as it is simply poor - best way to train a dog is to do both. Same with children, actually, though probably not in the same manner.

To get further off track, you are completely wrong. Beating a dog is never necessary and is counter-productive especially regarding a dog's emotional well being.

Kolya on 25/8/2009 at 21:44

Advanced education tactics, dude.

Ostriig on 25/8/2009 at 21:59

Quote Posted by D'Juhn Keep

To get further off track, you are completely wrong. Beating a dog is never necessary and is counter-productive especially regarding a dog's emotional well being.

Find that hard to believe, but okay. Just kids then.

Rogue Keeper on 25/8/2009 at 22:31

I find a waterboarded Arabian wearing orange pyjamas in my toalet and I drag the US to the Hague.

(did it sound like proper Texasian taunting?)

CCCToad on 25/8/2009 at 22:39

The answer as to why they allow it continue is something that I have heard a good explanation to. I don't yet have enough evidence to defend my belief in a harvard-style debate, but I think that the reason that it is allowed to continue is because they want the power to rendition people, detain them indefinitely, and torture them.

In my opinion, this is where the real issue lies. As long as we can rendition people to places where car batteries are hooked up to their privates, "enhanced interrogation" will continue to be a sidebar issue and a straw dog argument.

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It seems to me like the whole Guantanomo issue was an attempt to gain some political capital. once it became obvious that it wasn't possible to close it as quickly as they wanted without spending a lot of political capitol, the issue was dropped. And, again, I really fail to see how it has any effect on foreign policy. Waterboarding is waterboarding, no matter where you do it.

edit: was reading through other posts I didn't respond to, and:

Quote:

The differences between the two major parties exist as competition between competing ruling class blocs. These ruling class blocs are motivated by greed, not political ideology. Such ideology is our poison.

I like the way you think, and its why there's plenty of valid reasons for both opinions on whether of not both parties are "basically the same"

heywood on 26/8/2009 at 13:41

Quote Posted by Morte

A politician not fulfilling his campaign promises. Holy shit. Stop the presses. Never seen that before.

Seriously though, I think your expectations are more than a little unrealistic. The President can't just snap his fingers and make things happen. In our system, his power is strictly limited by design. Not to mention he's at the tiller of a Titanic bureaucracy that doesn't exactly turn on a dime. In college I had to read Richard Neustadt's book "Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents", which was a good study of Presidential power and its limitations, though I think it applies to any kind of executive power. I suggest you check it out.

Bill Clinton famously claimed that upon taking office, he was shocked to find that the system of precedent built up around the Presidency tied his hands so much that he couldn't accomplish anything. GWB and Cheney said they wanted their real legacy to be expanding the power of the Presidency - they wanted to hand over a stronger, more powerful office than they inherited. They spent 8 years at it and weren't particularly successful (thankfully). Obama's been at the helm for only 6 months. What do you think he is, a miracle worker?

Morte on 26/8/2009 at 15:13

Quote Posted by heywood

Obviously he can't snap his fingers and have everything cleaned up at once. But all those policies were put in place by the executive branch -- I'd actually say Bush/Cheney were remarkably successful at expanding the power of the executive, although Cheney obviously wouldn't have been satisfied until he could have people executed on a whim -- so they're well within his powers to reverse. It would be a start to actually make a commitment to end illegal policies like indefinite detention, and *not* have the justice department inventing horrible things like post-aquittal detention. That's moving in the wrong direction entirely.