I guess I would answer no to most if not all the scenarios that you described, but we don't need our military maintaining golf courses in Okinawa to deal with these threats.

I was against the Iraq War, but I have a hard time saying we were wrong to overthrow Saddam Hussein, who wasn't known as The Butcher Of Baghdad for nothing. He was as bad as they come.

I was against the Iraq war for two reasons – 1) We were already fighting in Afghanistan and didn't need a diversion from the Al Qaeda target, and 2) the 'you break it, you own it' thinking of Colin Powell. I was afraid we'd create as many problems as we solved by taking down Saddam and become involved in a situation that it would be difficult to extricate ourselves from.

You seem to be advocating a protectionist, isolationist type of foreign policy. While I'm sympathetic with that position and wish it could be so, I don't really believe it can be, not in a nuclear world, not in a globalized world. The cold reality is that if America doesn't act against tyrants, nobody will act against tyrants, and if nobody acts, tyranny expands. Do we just stand by idly while the religious extremists in Iran gets nuclear weapons ? Do we stand by idly while Al Qaeda kills thousands and thousand of people ? Do we stand by idly if the Taliban overruns nuclear Pakistan ? Do we stand by idly if terrorists acquire nuclear weapons ? It just isn't possible nor responsible to do that.

Mr King,
I don't recall Al Qaeda demanding that we become an Islamic caliphate. I could get by with the other two. And Bush complied with removing troops from Saudi Arabia.
I didn't say that terrorists are attacking us because of what happened at Gitmo. As you say, the attacks predate the torture. But the torture that occurred at Gitmo, Abu Gahraib, Afghanistan, and the "rendition" sites undoubtedly has been used as a motivation for recruitment an to maintain their anger.
But you missed my point entirely. What I am saying is that we routinely have done things like overthrow governments, democratic and otherwise. We presume the right to do to others things which we would find intolerable if we were on the receiving end. Is it any wonder that we continually have enemies? This is why we need to lose the concept of American exceptionalism. The whole world knows we were wrong to invade Iraq. The
whole world knows we were wrong to torture. Sometimes it seems that the only people in the world unable to recognize our government's duplicity is the American people.

They torture all the time and do what it takes to promote their self-interest. Pretending we are above the fray and insisting our moral code is universal are the worst kinds of exceptionalism and I'd guess foreigners of all stripes see right through it.

There were tons of unauthorized disclosures of classified information during the Bush era. Name even one person who was put in jail over them. There weren't any.

Pelosi never even complained about waterboarding. She was on board with it, because the post 9/11 climate was that we'd do what it took to prevent another attack. Now, of course, the political climate is different, thus, so is Pelosi. She has no principles. Just another lying political hack looking for a partisan axe to grind.

frank says, "As long as we, as a country, show the inability to put ourselves in other people's shoes to judge the actions taken in our name by our government, we will remain a target of terrorists."

frank, you can't possibly believe that the terrorists are attacking us because of what happened at Gitmo. You know better than that, especially since there were so many terrorist attacks launched against us and many other countries before we were even holding terrorists at Gitmo. You're putting the cart before the horse.

We will be a target of terrorists until we do three things – 1) Stop supporting Israel, 2) remove all troops and military bases from the Middle East, and 3) become an Islamic caliphate. Those three conditions don't come from me, they come from Al Qaeda.

I am far less tolerant of Pelosi and the cowardly Democratic leadership than the Rev. A real patriot would risk his or her career and even jail to have prevented these crimes. She deserves to pay the price, along with Bush and Cheney.

If you think that Obama is my "love object president", you haven't been paying attention. His campaign and his governmence so far has been centrist. The hopes of progressives and the fears of conservatives combined to give him an image much farther to the left than he deserved. So far, he has tried to evade his duty to hold Bush, Cheney, or anyone accountable for their actions, which are clearly illegal under US law, the UN charter, and various treaties we have signed. He has failed to address the causes of the failure of the financial system, relying on the same hacks whose policies resulted in the problem. His plan to leave Iraq has devolved to the point of being near to Bush's. So, although he is far better than Bush, he's far from being my "love object". In fact, I think his acceptance of the status quo in many instances to be his weakness.

It is a feel good issue for you and the Reverend. Your love object president is flushing our children's future down the toilet and you're grasping at straws to make it seem like things have changed for the better. It's ugly and a open fingered slap to the face of real torture victims the world over. Shame.

Defending Pelosi is a joke, Reverend. If they didn't need her support they wouldn't have briefed her.

Pelosi knew, even if she knew Bush was torturing outright, that she couldn't do anything about it. If she had blown the whistle, she would have been arrested by the Bush administration….is there any doubt about that?

She wanted to impeach…BUT….she knew she didn't have enough votes in the Senate to get it done. The spectacle that would have ensued would have made the whole ordeal pointless.

I know torture is a 'feel good' issue for you, but I won't be able to follow unless you take a more rational approach.

average joe5,
While I suspect Pelosi of covering her butt, surely you can recognize the dissonance to insist that Bush and Cheney have nothing to hide, but Pelosi does. If you feel that Bush and Cheney's methods were warranted, then you should praise Pelosi for not preventing them and ensuring that they were not impeached.

Mr. King,
You seem to be repeating a lot from O'Reilly. Are you sure you want to use him as a source?

The concept of American exceptionalism has nothing to do with accomplishments. It is the concept that, for America, the rules don't apply, because either it's God's will, or because the glory of "spreading democracy" justifies whatever actions we take. It is this hypocrisy that fuels the anger of our enemies. As long as we, as a country, show the inability to put ourselves in other people's shoes to judge the actions taken in our name by our government, we will remain a target of terrorists.

kj,
Welcome to the Blog of Cognitive Dissonance.

What do you mean IF other countries tortured American soldiers ? Name me a country or group that HASN'T tortured American soldiers while at war against us.

Rev says, "Today's conservatives only know two things. Taxes need cut….and….America, alone, is exceptional."

Untrue. Conservatives also know that federal spending needs to be reduced.
Liberals, by contrast, know that prosperity is achieved by taxing and spending until the citizens have hardly anything left and the prices of everything are through the roof. It's a mental disorder, really. I call it LDD, Liberal Dissociative Disorder.

I'm also wondering how it's possible to look at the 20th century and then conclude America isn't exceptional. I guess with LDD, anything is possible.

Churchill tortured Nazis too.

http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/80642.html

And how about the tens of thousands of Japanese who died slowly from radiation poisoning following Hiroshima and Nagasaki ? They suffered far more than any terrorists at Gitmo ever will. It's war. It's ugly.

We didn't execute the Japanese for waterboarding either. Waterboarding was among the least of their offenses. At the Tokyo war crimes trials, there were about 57 counts against the Japanese commanders. None specifically mentioned waterboarding, and the charges were mostly for engaging in crimes against humanity for attacking other countries and waging war. Saying we executed the Japanese for waterboarding is like saying we executed Timothy McVeigh for parking illegally.

And the last four CIA chiefs ALL admit we got high-value intelligence from the enhanced interrogation techniques. George Tenet even said those techniques yielded more intelligence that all our other efforts combined. Obama's National Intelligence Director, Dennis Blair, said we gained valuable intelligence, and Obama himself has even said it in so many words.

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1016083/Ex-CIA-head-says-waterboarding–works-

But thanks for all that "wingnut" and "cult" talk. I always enjoy that. I didn't know the Reverend gave lessons.

kj, you are right I missed the disclaimer. On every other point you are just as confused as frank is, however.

King was trying to provoke….and he was successful. King isn't really for torture…..he's simply trying to make the torture that Bush ordered seem trivial, you know, like Rush did when he said it was like frat-boy hazing.

The reason King trivialized torturing other human beings is because he knows what will happen to the conservative movement if torture is treated as the national and international crime that it is. Hell might freeze over before we had another GOP president.

If other countries ordered the torture of our American soldiers, then King would want them all hung. And therein lies the problem.

Don't forget, the modern American conservative movement, unlike at any other time, not only believes that if the president does something, by definition it's never illegal…..but also, if America does ANYTHING,….arbitrarily invade sovereign nations, wiretap American citizens, kidnap innocent people, be the only industrialized nation that doesn't offer it's citizens health care, whatever you might think of…..it's not only the right thing to do, it's the most exceptional thing that can be done.

It's the damnest thing.

Today's conservatives only know two things. Taxes need cut….and….America, alone, is exceptional.

One of kj's links was to what John McCain, most likely a total RINO, said about torturers and what we did to them…..but see?….the torturers weren't Americans. Makes all the difference in the world. It is that kind of thinking that created the f*cked up mess we're in right now.

Also I didn't say they didn't waterboard. However, there were much worse things done to the prisoners than waterboarding. Read the article. But you will believe the lib spin, drone.

Oh and thanks for the links. Couldn't you quote something or someone better than conspiracy theorists or someone selling a book? How about doing some real investigating and coming to a decision instead of just going along with what they tell you to believe.

Do you think it was worse to waterboard? or to do some of these things? Electrocution, beheading, amputation, starving, not providing clothes, drowning, pulling off fingernails, starving and not giving water, scalping, firing squads, burying injured prisoners alive, pullling bones out of their sockets and breaking bones. Do you think some of those other thinks may have carried more weight than waterboarding?

btw, i find it funny but not surprising how none of the commenters here have deigned to comment on the findings of the FBI that torture doesn't work or have the courage of their convictions to say that the men in power during the "greatest generation" were wrong to sign the geneva conventions and prosecute waterboarders. come on, step up. tell your father's and grandfather's they were WRONG. do you have the guts?

try this, instead: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2007/dec/18/john-mccain/history-supports-mccains-stance-on-waterboarding/

look to the far right (ha! irony) of the page and you'll see they site THREE sources. game, set & match, wingnut…

and yes, it would have been ILLEGAL for pelosi or anyone briefed on things that were classified to come and talk about it publicly.