Waiting for Fitzgerald

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
Why do you hate Texas?

I like Texas, although I prefer the pork barbecue to the beef.

I was using it as an example. Substitute your choice of state with a prison system and a rich tradition of incarceration for Texas if you prefer.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
I'm not sure that they would have thought that the constitution applied in the locales in question.

So the idea of spreading U.S.-style democracy to the rest of the world is a dead end?

Remind me why we're in Iraq again? Is it because we thought that their totalitarian government was the way the world should be run?

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
I like Texas, although I prefer the pork barbecue to the beef.

I was using it as an example. Substitute your choice of state with a prison system and a rich tradition of incarceration for Texas if you prefer.

The City Meat Market in Giddings, Texas has the best barbeque in the whole wide world* and it is primarily pork based.



*I can produce two other GAs who can back this claim up. And I'm not sleeping with either one of them.

[nononono]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
The City Meat Market in Giddings, Texas has the best barbeque in the whole wide world* and it is primarily pork based.



*I can produce two other GAs who can back this claim up. And I'm not sleeping with either one of them.

We are talking pulled pork, yes? That stuff (generally - I'venever been to the place you mention) is a gift from God.

[Captain]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
I'm not sure that they would have thought that the constitution applied in the locales in question.

So you think the Founders believed in limited government up to our borders, and unlimited government beyond?

I suspect the Founders would have had differing views on the topic; remember, some, like Hamilton, believed that the acts of several states in seizing and selling assets (including in some cases assets on the high seas) of Tories who fled the country and claimed no US citizenship were improper and, once the constituion existed, unconstitutional. So they would have applied the constitution to protect assets of aliens abroad from the federal government.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by nononono
We are talking pulled pork, yes? That stuff (generally - I'venever been to the place you mention) is a gift from God.

No. We're talking barbequed pork shoulder. Smoked for hours and hours and hours and rubbed down perfectly.

ETA: I highly recommend Robb Walsh's Legends of Texas Barbecue Cookbook: Recipes and Recollections from the Pit Bosses

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
Spanky, you hurt me -- and do no justice to several fine posters. In any event, as to Penske it depends on how his meds are working that day and for Hank, the lunar cycle.

S_A_M

Your politics are murkey. You are harder to pigeonhole and you don't lash back with a lot of venom. Doesn't train the newbies for the jungle to come.

[SlaveNoMore]

Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
So the idea of spreading U.S.-style democracy to the rest of the world is a dead end?

Remind me why we're in Iraq again? Is it because we thought that their totalitarian government was the way the world should be run?

Al Franken tells me we are there for cheap oil and to make Halliburton stockholders rich.

Did he lie to me?

[SlaveNoMore]

Captain
So you think the Founders believed in limited government up to our borders, and unlimited government beyond?

I suspect the Founders would have had differing views on the topic; remember, some, like Hamilton, believed that the acts of several states in seizing and selling assets (including in some cases assets on the high seas) of Tories who fled the country and claimed no US citizenship were improper and, once the constituion existed, unconstitutional. So they would have applied the constitution to protect assets of aliens abroad from the federal government.

Several others also believed in summarily hanging enemy combatants and soldiers accused of treason - so there was a wide view out there.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Of what benefit is it to hide the existence of interrogation prisons other than to avoid international scrutiny? This isn't covert ops, which are, understandably, covert. Once you've caught them and are interrogating them all but the information gleaned can be public without serious threat to intelligence gathering efforts.

But maybe what you're saying is that torture is justified in these circumstances.

the article points to one reason- the location could make a friendly nation an increased terror target.

the CIA's job is to gather information. the very way that is done is always slimy. Acts like prohibiting the use of criminals as informants, building walls, all the "reforms" were well-reasoned. They made "sense" within our rosy view of what America is. They also fucked up our ability to gather information.

What the CIA does should disgust and frighten you, and you shouldn't know about it.

[Bad_Rich_Chic]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
In addition to taking the under on Slave's 64 yeas for Alito (calling the vote of 52), I also predict that history will regard the Bush administration's terrorist imprisonment approaches to be a nadir not only for american foreign policy but also for its role as the leader of the free world. Although it may ultimately be something of an historical footnote, like McCarthyism, it will be a noted one.

I agree that it will be a footnote, but, like McCarthyism or Japanese internment, a very negatively noted one. I am not sure I think that analysis will be correct, however. (In this case. I also agree that the ends do not necessarily justify the means.)

Hank:
We need a CIA doing things we don't know about. Scrutiny of the CIA in the 70s and 80s killed it.

I think it was more downsizing, bureacratic changes and general governmental hostility than scrutiny, but the scrutiny didn't help. Oddly, you need accountability to get results, but if you are results-oriented in intelligence gathering & analysis and penalize incorrect suppositions, you discourage non-consensus (i.e.: safe) thinking, and therefore, while you get many of the little things right, you totally miss the big shifts. In any event, I think the CIA is doing plenty we don't know about. I think the problem is their methods of doing it have now been thoroughly analyzed by our enemies and are being effectively circumvented/subverted (see: Chalabi & Iranian misdirection re: WMD in Iraq). Again, public scrutiny doesn't help that, but bureacratic entrenchment & serious institutional risk aversion are probably bigger problems.

Penske:
the Clintons attempted to destroy the CIA in the 90s. That is something history should examine. Although it may have been about sex, and if so, it is probably excusable.

Carter had a lot more to do with it, and the gelding of the FBI was in the long term perhaps more damaging, if well justified at the time. (Don't worry, you can still blame a Dem. Though none of the Repubs after really fixed it, either.)

Burger:
Of what benefit is it to hide the existence of interrogation prisons other than to avoid international scrutiny? This isn't covert ops, which are, understandably, covert. Once you've caught them and are interrogating them all but the information gleaned can be public without serious threat to intelligence gathering efforts.

You're kidding, right? Hiding the very existence of the prisons is one thing, but, as it would in fact seriously impair intelligence gathering efforts to make public (for example, by allowing any sort of access) information about who you have captured or are actively interrogating (because your enemy learns (i) where you are getting intelligence hits and perhaps how, and (ii) what areas of their operations are compromised - "pinging" western intelligence and analyzing exactly where that intelligence is weak is a particular strength of al Qaeda, incidentally) or how you are interrogating them (because they can prepare other operatives to resist those methods), mere knowledge of the prison's existence is sort of useless from a human rights enforcement p.o.v. Maybe we do in fact calculate in the balance that the human rights supervision issues are so important that they trump the security issues, but don't kid yourself that that isn't, in fact, the trade off.

Burger:
I like Texas, although I prefer the pork barbecue to the beef.

Once again, I concur. And what is it with that sickly-sweet tomato based sauce?

[spookyfish]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
No. We're talking barbequed pork shoulder. Smoked for hours and hours and hours and rubbed down perfectly.

ETA: I highly recommend Robb Walsh's Legends of Texas Barbecue Cookbook: Recipes and Recollections from the Pit Bosses

You can put a good dry-rub on a boot and it be tasty.

(Which reminds me, whatever happened to the food board? It's creeping up on Thanksgiving, ya know. . . )

[nononono]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
No. We're talking barbequed pork shoulder. Smoked for hours and hours and hours and rubbed down perfectly.

ETA: I highly recommend Robb Walsh's Legends of Texas Barbecue Cookbook: Recipes and Recollections from the Pit Bosses

Oh, sounds good, too. I am just a sucker for pulled. Few good places for any of it (of any sort) where I live now.

[Captain]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Several others also believed in summarily hanging enemy combatants and soldiers accused of treason - so there was a wide view out there.

I agree; one of the great myths out there is that the "Founders" had a high level of unity of thought. They disagreed violently on many things.

But, Hamilton/Burr duel aside, they generally treated each other with far more respect that is seen in politics today.

A good book that makes this point is called "The Other Founders" by Saul Cornell. It highlights the role played by many of the anti-federalists in the development of the constitution and the early government.

[SlaveNoMore]

Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
I also predict that history will regard the Bush administration's terrorist imprisonment approaches to be a nadir not only for american foreign policy but also for its role as the leader of the free world.

What ultimately fascinates me about stories like this is that - although these black sites are only "known about" by a handful of officials both here in the US and in the host country - this author, as well as countless others, sure seems to know a hell of a lot about them.