<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 5:51 PM, g. crabtree <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jampot@roadrunner.com">jampot@roadrunner.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
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<div><i>"Incidentally, I directed this originally at Gary, but he seems
unwilling to defend torture on its own terms." </i></div>
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</div><div><font size="2" face="Arial">My goodness isn't the nascent little ambulance
chaser cute when he gets all up on his hind legs and brays about how others
should be ashamed?</font></div>
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<div><font size="2" face="Arial">The reason that I don't "defend torture" is because
that I see no compelling need to. As I've said before, I do not believe
that waterboarding is torture, I do not believe that the previous administration
had a policy promoting the use of torture, and I don't think that your
pretending to be the arbiter of all that is righteous, pure and holy
necessitates my responding to every idle quack and query that's directed my
way. </font></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br>Gary --<br><br>You keep accusing me of being "on a high horse." However: you can defend torture from the low-step of a tricycle. Anyone with a rudimentary conscience, left or right, understands that torture is wrong. To your credit, you appear to have such a conscience; however, you're having a problem of cognitive dissonance where you admit that torture happened while denying that anyone in particular (even the lawyers who set the bar at "pain equal to that caused by death;" even the political figures who compelled them to produce that opinion) is responsible for it.<br>
<br>Roger has had the courage of his so-called convictions, and is defending torture-qua-torture; torture under its own name. You, on the other hand, seem to lack a commitment to any principle other than partisanship. I'm just wondering that if the FBI, OLC, CIA inspector general, the general responsible for investigating Abu Ghraib, and media reports aren't enough evidence for you, what would be? Do you always take the testimony of criminals above the testimony of those hired to investigate them? If so, is there any way that Sunil can ensure that you're on all of his juries?<br>
<br>-- ACS<br></div></div><br>