Torture?

If waterboarding is torture, and I am not opposed to defining it as such, but regardless, it is a definition and subject to being redefined. As Alan Dershowitz has noted, everyone would use waterboarding if it would save their child from suffocation in a grave.

 

Denials are specious, because it is easy to take a principled position when no personally valued life is at stake. I trust Obama to make the right position at the right time because he is a realist and would not sacrifice many innocent American lives for a definition. I would love to hear from those who think he will.

 

The Constitution does not protect our servicemen from torture. The Geneva Conventions do not protect our servicemen from torture. Both are useful if we ever get into a war with France.

 

Unfortunately, nothing protected our Japanese prisoners from torture. Nothing protected our Korean prisoners from torture. Nothing protected our Pueblo crewmen from torture. Nothing protected our Vietnam prisoners from torture. Nothing has protected our Iraqi prisoners from torture. The amount of torture that exists in Mexico today is unbelievable and it will not increase or decrease regardless of what we do.

 

Despite all of the international conventions against torture, it exists TODAY in many (most?) nations of the world. Those conventions do not stop the rape and murder today in Darfur and several other African nations, they did not protect the women in Bosnia from rape rooms, and they did not protect the women of Iraq from rape rooms.

 

Pronuncios from representatives of People for a Perfect World unfortunately indicate that those representatives live in that Perfect World but it is not in this world. Theirs is a parallel universe unrelated to reality. Certainly, torture should be rarely used but innocent American lives have been saved by the RARE use of waterboarding. That seems to be a humane exchange – discomfort (not death, not disfigurement, and not permanent damage) saved lives.

 

I would do that and so would you.

 

Let’s paraphrase the Dershowitz scenario. Your daughter has been kidnapped and you have received a call to pay a ransom to save your daughter who is being held in a casket below ground with an estimated six hours of oxygen.

 

You have already called the FBI before the ransom call.

 

Four hours after the ransom call, the FBI says they have the man who made the call and he is bragging that your daughter has just two hours of oxygen left.

 

Would you authorize waterboard the man to find the location of your daughter before her oxygen runs out?

 

I don’t give a RA how you phrase it, personal or policy, the President of the United States will do what is necessary to save innocent American lives.

 

Law or no law. Policy or no policy. Geneva or Paris or Whatever conventions.

 

If a President weighs discomfort against tens, or hundreds, or thousands of innocent American lives he or she will make the right decision and so would you. Hang the consequences. I hope you would support his or her decision.  

 

My support for waterboarding is case specific, not generalized torture for torture sake as was the case in WWII.

 

 I have no problem with not torturing as a national policy, or even including waterboarding as torture, I am saying what a President SHOULD and WILL do in extremis to save innocent American lives. Policy is one thing, reality is yet another.

 

If policy trumps all, we do not need a human in the White House. Policy without exceptions can EASILY be run by a computer. Humans decide when policy furthers the national goal, and when it impedes the national goal.

 

Exceptions do not prove a rule, they test a rule. I do not argue for torture, just warn that there are rare exceptions and that the rule is not absolute. There have been three rare exceptions in the past five years — at least some of those I believe were acceptable. If you hold that there are NO EXCEPTIONS, then you do believe that the Constitution is a suicide pact.

Just a Newer Rendition of Rendition

Liberals are calling for arresting Bush because he used “rendition” – or sweeping people off the streets and sending them to Egypt for torturing. The initial “extreme rendition” order was signed by Bill Clinton in 1995, so I* guess he has to be arrested also. Yes, Bush used it more after 9/11. Here is an absolute, gold-plated prediction: Obama will use it also. You can take it to the bank.

 

Rose-colored glasses are not becoming to world leaders, and those unwilling or unable to make the hard decisions should not apply. JFK authorized assassinations, as has every other President. It goes with the job. Obama will be a President. The position of Jesus has been previously filled, and Obama will do what he must to protect innocent Americans.

 

It has ever been thus – I published a column in the SD Union 20 years ago titled “Boy Scouts Don’t Win Wars.’ True then, true now.

 

Most members on this Blog have zero concept of how the world actually works, and they would be shocked (and sickened) if they saw the decisions necessary to keep this nation safe. Obama now understands much of what he never knew, even with his immersion in Chicago politics. The world is much, much worse than Chicago.

 

Think Mexico as an example…

GITMO Timeline Expanded

The Washington Post buried the lede (also spelled lead) story in today’s Page One interview of the Editorial Board with Obama.

 

“In a wide-ranging 70-minute interview with Washington Post reporters and editors, the president-elect pledged quick action on the Middle East once he takes office, promised to support voting rights for D.C. residents, and said he will consider it a failure if he has not closed the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by the end of his first term in office.” (FOURTH paragraph!)

 

Note the expanded timeline for GITMO — the end of his first term!

Musings

Love this global warming — top down, 300 HP lovely: Lunch at Tom Ham’s, and Bentleys, and each day better than the last. Cold kills a lot more people than does heat, and heat produces better crop yield. You think we have a problem…just await the next Ice Age!

 

Then today while roaming and collecting Vitamin D, I hear that Leon Panetta was Chief of Staff for Clinton when Clinton instituted “extreme rendition” and Egypt tortured on our behalf — so maybe Leon isn’t so bad, after all.

 

I am just waiting to hear those who remarked previously on Joe he Plumber’s $2,000 delinquent tax to remark on the newly nominated Secretary of the Treasury’s $35,000 “tax holiday.”

Teacher Salaries

Just developing a few statistics for a column, and thought you might be interested in a few factoids:

 

(School-year 2007-08) Average teacher salary actually paid: Poway ($69,527); Highest actually paid: ($87,318).

 

(School-year 2007-08) Average teacher salary actually paid: Escondido Union High ($63,842); Highest actually paid: ($88,320).

 

(School-year 2007-08) Average teacher salary actually paid: Escondido Union Elementary ($63,892); Highest actually paid: ($86,393). 

 

(School-year 2007-08) Average teacher salary actually paid: San Marcos Unified ($65,977); Highest actually paid: ($88,329).

 

Just Leave Me Alone

: I AM an expert on my right hip pocket, and its contents. You wish to impact me with your ideas, and you want me to change my living conditions based upon YOUR perceptions of reality!

 

It is much like religion – I don’t care WHAT you believe in religion but if you want your religion to dictate MY expenditures, or to determine my lifestyle, I am going to get huffy.

 

And you do want your beliefs (which, like religion may or may not be correct) to impact me, so I am going to resist. If you want to live your life according to your religion, and solarize your home and buy a Prius, permission granted.

Just leave me alone.

It is 85 Today — I Love Global Warming

I do not know if there is AGW, but as an engineer I want to see the numbers, and when the supporters of AGW demonstrate an ability to predict with some reasonable accuracy, it will be demonstrated.

 

Now if this was just an intellectual exercise, I would not give a whit one way or another, but the proponents of AGW go one step further in their support and ask that the entire world scrap its economic system and set a new course based upon their predictions.

 

That requires more than just consensus among scientists, it requires PROOF. Scientific theories can be proven, Trust but verify – you may have heard this term previously.

Obama Meets Reality

If the AP is correct, and I saw the Obama interview that indicated it is true, then for weeks, months, an illegal act will continue to be perpetrated against perhaps “innocent” individuals. And this will continue under the Obama administration? Oh, the humanity!

 

IF GITMO is illegal on January 19, it is equally illegal on January 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27…good intentions notwithstanding.

Seed Packs, Anyone?

I saw an interesting piece on CNN this a.m. – it seems that HALF of the roofs on downtown buildings in Tokyo have rooftop gardens – rice, vegetables…even bee keeping!

 

Anyone who has ever been to Tokyo KNOWS that Tokyo is not exactly a three growing-seasons climate. It is COLD.

 

But it awakened my senses to an old concern of mine (always looking for solutions), and that is why we give food stamps to the indigent in San Diego County. Heck, we even give them in Imperial County, probably the Growing Capitol of the World!

 

 I grow my own tomatoes, although there is no need to do so for economic reasons, and additionally I have three different oranges, lemon, lime and grapefruit  — I suspect most of us do, just for the freshness if not for economic reasons.

 

It would be interesting to find the level of self-sufficiency among the poor. Do any of them grow their own food, or have they become so dependent upon the kindness of others that they have lost all of their self-sufficiency. I also know that in some poor neighborhoods, some individuals join together to plant vacant lots – sort of collectivist plots.

 

I know of no studies on that subject, but the Heritage Foundation did the seminal studies on the poor’s actual wealth, so perhaps they know.

 

I just wonder why, in San Diego County we do not selectively give seeds instead of food stamps to the poor? If, solar is something everyone in San Diego county should consider because of the (general) absence of cloud cover, should we not also take advantage of our relative warmth?

 

People For a Perfect World

Thank you for your membership in People for a Perfect World. A star has been named in your honor and placed in a copyrighted book in the US Library of Congress.

 

Please be advised that we will end the nations’ “poor” by 8 a.m. tomorrow morning, exactly the same way they were made “poor” – by definition. We have found that this nation has the richest poor in the world, and that the number of those labeled as poor continues to grow simply because we define them that way.

 

Commencing tomorrow morning, “poor” will be defined as those with no roof and four walls to which to repair tonight and no meals available to them at shelters or soup kitchens.

 

We have found that the floating definition of poor has brought us “poor” people who own their own homes, have more than one car, heating and air conditioning, cable TV, etc.

 

This irrational definition is so fluid that we might just as well define Bill Gates as “poor” or the homeless as “rich.” So, we have decided to define poor on a rational basis since the average poor live at a level to be envied by the middle class in Europe or the wealthy in Africa.

 

We are now working on ending the war in Gaza. We will support a MASSIVE UN deployment of troops to enforce the cessation of action and the rule of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank by a single entity. Please vote in our poll as to whether you think that a government with central authority run by HAMAS or the Israeli government will be the most merciful and civilized to the population.

 

And, we again thank you.