Sweet Geebus! Just When One Thinks It Can't Get Any Worse.

Yet another example of the results of tyranny, even unto death. The persecuted become persecutors, the terrorized become merchants of terror, the oppressed become the oppressors, etc.

Seems obvious by now that it isn't a real good idea to give victims a state of their own and a license to kill any and all, and by any means, of their "enemies, who surround them.

In my lifetime, there have been a remarkable number of tyrants who have distinguished themselves in the school of evil. Yes, there was Hitler, before I was born but the worst of the worst, at least so I was taught as a child. We defeated him by joining up with Joe Stalin, who may have killed more of his own people that Hitler did. Then there was Castro, Pol Pot, several dirt-bags to our South, if not in our own South, Saddam Hussein, numerous torture- for-hire governments around the middle east and Central Asia.

None, no matter how many gruesome acts the may have committed, have ever been thought of like Hitler. Their acts were every bit as gruesome and illegal as those of Hitler and his Third Reich, yet to many Americans they are only footnotes in history, if that.

No other "victims" in history have been given their own state, let alone a state based on religion, propped up by the U.S. at every turn even when the governments of Israel have committed war crimes and are guilty of having nuclear weapons, in defiance of the non-proliferation treaty which we signed.

Lately, it was revealed that an infamous NeoCon asserted that anyone criticizing the NeoCons is anti-semetic.

Gee. seems only yesterday that one was anti-semetic only when one questioned the policies of the Israeli government, at any given time. Now not even the almighty Neocons can be questioned without the threat of the most unholy of all labels, "anti-semetic."

My mother taught me waht the phrase, "Never Again" means. "Never again" means we will not stand by and watch a whole group of people attacked and damned near wiped out by other people who are mad with fear and hatred.

So, are the Palestinians the present day Jews?

What's the point in gaining knowledge if we refuse to use it on the big problems that seem to have plagued us since the beginning of history?

« Patrick Fitzgerald’s Private Jihad

17 Jun

Censoring Pro-Palestinian Political Messages?

Was it policy or pressure that led Lamar Outdoor Advertising to tear down billboards featuring a pro-Palestinian political message?

Judge for yourself. Lamar, which operates over 150 outdoor advertising companies in more than 40 states and Puerto Rico, entered into an eight week contract in April with a local New Mexico grassroots group called the Coalition to Stop $30 Billion to Israel to provide ten billboards throughout the Albuquerque area. Each carried this message: “Tell Congress: Stop Killing Children. No More Military Aid to Israel.”

Motivated by concern over an Israeli military incursion into Gaza that left more than 1400 Palestinians dead – most civilians — and another 5,000 injured, Coalition members paid for the messages to register their objection to a 2007 Bush Administration Memorandum of Understanding that provides $30 billion U.S. taxpayer dollars to Israel over a ten-year period – an understanding that the Obama Administration has now adopted as its own. Much of the money will be used to purchase American-made weapons.

Surprisingly, after just three weeks, the billboards were abruptly taken down.

Coalition leaders say correspondence they received from Lamar executives indicated they had removed the billboards – despite the fact that the company’s own graphics department had designed them in cooperation with the Coalition — after having received numerous complaints. Nonetheless, the Coalition and Lamar’s corporate officers agreed on May 18 to a modified redesign of the billboards.

But just one week later, Lamar officials turned around again and rescinded their approval. Coalition members say they were told that the company’s switchboard had been inundated with phone calls objecting to the billboards.

Lamar’s Vice President of Governmental Relations Hal Kilshaw says there’s no conspiracy or censorship at play, however. Instead, Kilshaw offers a much simpler explanation for the contretemps: “We made a mistake – twice!”

Both the original and the revised billboards violated the firm’s Copy Acceptance Policy, Kilshaw says, since it prohibits “misleading and offensive” advertising. The first effort was misleading, he explains, “because Congress is not killing children.” And the second was offensive, “because it still had a picture of a young girl and a tank.”

Yet Kilshaw’s explanation raises as many questions as it answers. If the first design was so “misleading,” why did Lamar agree to accept it in the first place? And why did it stay up for three weeks? “We erred,” Kilshaw says steadfastly. “We might have had an over-zealous ad salesperson. But we took it down after it was brought to the attention of the General Manager in Albuquerque.”

What about the second design – also created in concert with Lamar executives? “We erred again in approving a redesign and then modifying it,” Kilshaw explains. “There was some interim wrangling, we agreed to change it – and then upon re-thinking, decided the revision was offensive.”

Asked what Lamar officials found so “offensive” about the second design, Kilshaw said there is “no black and white way to define what is ‘offensive,’ but like the Supreme Court once said about pornography, I know it when I see it.”

Following their second ‘error,’ Lamar executives came back with three other proposed designs:

“We rejected each and every one of these choices,” says Coalition spokesperson Rich Forer. “None had any images. We asked Lamar to include an image of a tank to accompany very similar wording in the three choices Lamar offered us. We also told them an image would not be necessary if they included the following two phrases: ‘military aid’ and ‘tax dollars.’ All of these suggestions were unacceptable to them - despite the fact is the U.S. has agreed to give $30 billion dollars of taxpayer money to Israel over ten years for military spending, and Israel in return must spend about 76% of the money on U.S. made weapons. So using ‘tax dollars’ and ‘military aid’ are unequivocally accurate.”

Earlier this month, negotiations finally reached an impasse. The design that Lamar proposed was unacceptable to the Coalition, which regarded its message as “too watered down and almost meaningless,” and found it “vague and missing key elements to the message central in our campaign to end the cycle of military violence in this conflict.”

As Coalition member Rita Erickson explained to Lamar executives in an email: “If there were no occupation and oppressive living conditions for Palestinians, there would be no conflict; hence, the impression that we appear to be more sympathetic to Palestinians than Israeli Jews.” But Erickson, like Forer, was also quick to note, “We sincerely care about the human rights of both and are very clear that the occupation is not in Israel’s best interests.”

In a last-ditch attempt at compromise, the Coalition sent still more possible choices for billboards:

1. Tell Congress: No More Tax Dollars for Military Aid to Israel
(No Image Necessary)
2. Tell Congress: Stop Giving Taxpayer Dollars to Israel
(image of tank included)
3. Tell Congress: No More Military Aid to Israel
(image of tank included)
4. Any of the above messages with an image of an Israeli woman on one side and a Palestinian woman on the other side

The emailed response from Lamar? “Sorry original copy as proposed only.”

All of the Coalition’s money has now been refunded, and Company executives say they reserve the right to reject advertising for any reason whatsoever. But Hal Kilshaw wants to make it clear that “We don’t make decisions on political grounds here.” Acknowledging the company had received “lots of comments,” he says he understands “why the Coalition might think this is political, but it’s not. We don’t disagree with their message - it just violates our copy acceptance policy.”

Coalition members aren’t so sure, however. “Their local executive told us they took the first one down because of complaints,” says Rich Forer. “As for the second design, someone — either from the company or an infiltrator within our Coalition — must have notified people in the Jewish community, because there were lots of complaints about that one as well, even though it wasn’t made public!” Forer says information from Lamar employees indicates that pro-Israel groups “may have conducted a pressure campaign to get the billboards removed.” He and the others in the Coalition believe the protests were part of a deliberate and organized attempt to silence their right to free speech, and that Lamar is bowing to the pressure. They believe “a coordinated campaign to suppress the public’s right to be informed” about the Israeli Government’s policies and actions against the Palestinians has been waged against them.

“In contrast to the open debate about U.S.-Israel relations that occurs in much of the world, including Europe and even Israel,” the Coalition noted in a recent press release, “this level of censorship is all too common whenever somebody speaks out about Israel’s policies, the role of the U.S. in financing those policies and how, by doing so, the U.S. violates its own laws, specifically the Arms Export Control and Foreign Assistance Acts.”

What do you think? Was it policy or pressure that caused Lamar to cancel its contract?

The Coalition is now calling “on all people who are concerned about human rights to contact Lamar’s corporate offices and respectfully request they put the billboards back up as agreed to on May 18:

Kevin P. Reilly, Jr., President and CEO
Lamar Outdoor Advertising - Corporate
Phone: (225) 926-1000
Email: twall@lamar.com
Mailing Address: P. O. Box 66338, Baton Rouge, LA 70896

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Pap Smears and Proctology Exams For All Americans

Could not resist the Analogy

Warning: Health Care Lobbyists Are Winning the Battle to Screw All of Us

By Marie Cocco, Washington Post Writers Group
Posted on June 18, 2009, Printed on June 19, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/140732/

WASHINGTON -- You can't get there from here. Not if there is defined as health insurance coverage for everyone in the United States, lower costs for the millions of insured who are being crushed by its price, and relief for employers who are burdened by an expense many wish they could wipe off their books. And not if here is where the health insurance political debate is stuck.

At the moment, Republicans are gleeful and Democrats glum because of a Congressional Budget Office analysis -- based on an incomplete and early draft of what is likely to be the most liberal-leaning health care proposal to emerge from the Senate -- that shows the measure just won't get the job done. The budget office says the partial draft put together mainly by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., would reduce the number of uninsured by only about 16 million (out of upwards of 47 million) and cost about $1 trillion over the next decade. That's very little bang for a lot of bucks. But no one should be surprised at either number. For starters, candidate Barack Obama never ran on a platform to provide universal coverage. Of course he always said -- then and now -- that his goal is to cover everyone. But he has never put forward a concrete proposal for doing so, and hasn't endorsed a firm mandate that everyone purchase insurance. Remember those primary-season debates in which rivals Hillary Clinton and John Edwards criticized him for this? Attention should have been paid.

Now President Obama has left the legislative "details," as the White House likes to call them, to our esteemed lawmakers on Capitol Hill. This has fed an every-member-for-himself mentality, an instinct that needs no nourishment. Lawmakers of every political leaning are putting forward their own ideas, none of them as tough-minded or comprehensive as a single administration-initiated proposal might have been. Why? Because senators and members of the House represent discrete districts that are driven by their own local and political imperatives. They don't represent the country as a whole -- nor, when the subject is as complicated and has so many regional differences as health care, should we expect them to.

The result is a raft of proposals that are patch-and-fill jobs on the current system -- a system that pretty much everyone believes is crumbling to the point of collapse. This is an odd way to begin a major reconstruction project.

No one has seriously proposed concrete cost controls such as discount purchasing of prescription drugs by a government entity, which would demonstrably cut costs. In fact, the initial CBO analysis that my fellow liberals are so upset about shows not cost savings but a great deal of cost-shifting: The government would save money it now uses to subsidize tax-free insurance premiums, because some employees would drop workplace plans and purchase insurance through a new "exchange." But this savings would only partially offset the cost of providing subsidies to those who can't afford to purchase a policy outright. Meanwhile, the private insurance industry would continue to be the chief source of coverage -- and the only one, if the industry gets its way and Democrats produce legislation that does not create a public insurance plan as one purchase option.

Advocates of a single, national insurance system that would involve explicit cost controls and guidelines for care -- that might put an end to such wasteful practices as over-testing -- have been shunted aside. This is in part because Democrats quiver when Republicans call them "socialists." But Republicans cry "socialist" even when Democrats promote weak reforms that barely nick the vested interests. That's what's happening now. No one has seriously proposed an overhaul that would achieve what a single-payer system has been shown to accomplish in most other countries: universal coverage with lower costs that delivers better results than we now get in the United States.

Instead, Democrats have all but abandoned the idea that everyone be covered without exception. They've so far avoided endorsing clear cost-containment measures that would pass the budget-scorers' test of legitimacy. The wished-for savings that Obama says he wants the private insurance industry to achieve are exactly that -- wishes. The winners so far are health-industry lobbyists. They sense that their chances of protecting the interests of big insurers, drug companies, medical specialties, technology companies and the like are improving every day. They're probably right.

Marie Cocco's e-mail address is mariecocco(at)washpost.com.

(c) 2009, Washington Post Writers Group

Marie Cocco is a prize-winning syndicated columnist on political and cultural topics for The Washington Post Writers Group. She is a frequent commentator on national TV and radio shows.

© 2009 Washington Post Writers Group All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/140732/

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

More Rethug Perversion....

God, these people make me sick

For those who demand accountability in public officials, take heart. There is one area, even in these permissive times, that always leads to political trouble and it is spelled s-e-x.

Republican Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, mentioned as a possible contender for the GOP’s big prize in four years, found that out the hard way. He announced this morning he was stepping down from his party leadership post, a day after admitting that he had an extramarital affair.

It is hard to imagine that sex is as powerful an issue in 2009 as some people thought it was in the past. (Those who think sex in government began with Bill Clinton really should go take a good American history course in summer school -- if you can find one that hasn’t been closed because of funding cuts.)

Still, in the world of Republicans, pro-family and generally religious (hence, pro-fidelity), an extramarital affair can be a problem. Especially when it comes to campaigns and raising money from the conservative base.

Ensign was head of the Republican Policy Committee, the fourth-ranking spot in the Senate leadership pantheon. Combining rugged good looks, a distinguished head of gray hair and a focused, conservative outlook, Ensign was a possible contender for the GOP presidential nod in four years.

On Tuesday, he said he had a “consensual affair” from December 2007 to August 2008. There has been no indication of why the senator decided to announce his infidelity when he did, prompting media speculation about a motive.

Ensign can take heart, however, America loves someone who can claim to be the comeback kid. There are worse political platforms.

--Michael Muskal

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Public Healthcare, Socialism ands Such.

There is a freakin' difference between Communism and Socialism!

There is a huge difference between Marxism/Communism and socialism; not to mention Capitalism.

Capitalism.....free markets....blah....blah....blah. What does free trade have to do with it.....have to do with it?

We do not have free trade, we haven't had for as long as I have lived; 60 years.

Free trade is not the same as fair trade.

Bigger is not better!

Clinton Urges Obama To Stand Firm On A Strong Public Option: Don’t ‘Give Up The Store’ To Get 60 Votes

Yesterday, ThinkProgress joined a group of other progressive bloggers for a meeting with President Clinton at his office in Harlem. Clinton opened the discussion with details about his foundation work on areas such as HIV/AIDS and global warming, and the struggles he is having attracting new donors during the economic downturn.

Topics ranged from women’s rights to bridging the digital divide to the Waxman-Markey climate change legislation. Clinton also praised President Obama’s choice of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, saying that he thought “it was a good thing.” “Not just because she’s a woman, and Puerto Rican, and I know her and like her, and appointed her to the court…but I think it says that we’re going forward,” he said.

But some of his most extensive comments came on the subject of health care. Clinton said that due to political and economic conditions, Obama has a far better chance of passing health care than he did in 1993:

They’ve got a much different psychological and political landscape on which to operate. [...] Second, because of the current economic conditions, they don’t have the budget constraints I did. Keep in mind, I had just passed a budget in which we raised taxes on the wealthy, cut taxes on the working poor, and were on track to reducing the deficit, and there was no – we couldn’t raise taxes again. So when I had an employer-mandate, that in effect, guaranteed that the health insurance companies would be joined by the small business community – at least the organized small business community – which made it harder to pass.

Thirdly, he does not have a Republican leader who’s running for president. Bill Kristol sent Bob Dole a letter saying, “I know you like health care and I know you want to compromise with Bill Clinton” — which he told me he would do – “but if you let him pass anything, Democrats will be a majority for a generation. You’ve got to beat it off.” [...]

And finally – and most important of all – everything is worse now. The difference – the spread – in our spending and other people’s spending in ‘93, ‘94, was 14 percent of GDP on health care for us, 10 percent for our next highest competitor, Canada. Now the spread is 16 ½ to 11.

Clinton said that he believes Obama will work with the Senate to achieve the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster. But he urged Obama to be ready to use the budget reconciliation process — which would require just 51 votes to pass health care — if necessary to achieve a progressive bill:

If he can’t get a good bill, I wouldn’t give away the store on that. If he can’t get a bill that’s genuine universal coverage, that genuinely is going to cut costs and make health insurers give up some of these unbelievable administrative burdens that they’ve put on people, and that really gets to the guts of the delivery system and does more primary preventive care and actually measures things that work, then I would go for the 51. But I would spend a little time trying to get to 60.

Listen here:

Other bloggers at yesterday’s meeting were Chris Bowers of Open Left, who has a post up about Clinton’s climate change remarks; Scott Lemieux of Lawyers, Guns and Money, who has a summary of the discussion; and nyceve of Daily Kos and Laurie Edwards of A Chronic Dose of Reality, both of whom reported on Clinton’s health care remarks.

Transcript:

CLINTON: First of all, one of the things I worry about with Congress is – You know that old parable about once a cat sits on a hot stove, the problem is it will never sit on a cold stove either? So you tend to assume that whatever the political landmines were in ‘93, ‘94 – when we were doing this – still exist.

Let me back up and say, when the Democrats won the Congress in 2006, the morning after the election I told Hillary – I said, “I don’t care what the mainstream, conventional wisdom is. You know, unless we nominate a bank robber, the nominee of the Democratic party will be the next president.” Because America has now – Mostly because starting in ‘98, we had heavy majority support for not only the performance of the administration, but basically for the philosophy of – it wasn’t necessarily more left, it was more communitarian, the idea that we had to go forward together. That we couldn’t stand this level of inequality, we couldn’t stand this level of social division.

SPEAKER: Common good.

CLINTON: Yeah. And that began to be the operative mode of America. It was truncated by 9/11. Even in 2002, you go back and look at the New York Times survey. … It was three weeks before the election. It said that undecided voters by a 20-something percent margin, other things being equal, would like to vote for a Democrat for Congress because they thought the Bush administration was going to far to the right. The only reason they won seats in 2002 was because they made up that homeland security issue. It was just made up out of whole cloth.

Then in 2004, President Bush won re-election, but it was the smallest victory margin of any president re-elected since Woodrow Wilson in 1916 before World War I, and no wartime president had ever been defeated. In 2006, when the Democrats won, we were out of this 9/11 straight-jacket – emotional straight-jacket. And finally, we had seen what the consequences of what had been advocated, in terms of cultural divisions, since Nixon’s election in ‘68; in terms of economic and social divisions since Reagan’s election in ‘80. Those guys all got a free ride because the Democrats in Congress blocked what they wanted to do. We never got to see how it would work until President Bush got a Republican Congress. So we then became more communitarian.

Therefore, President Obama and the Congress – they need to know this. They’ve got a much different psychological and political landscape on which to operate. It doesn’t mean that people still aren’t skeptical of government, it doesn’t mean that people still can’t buy into these other arguments. But it’s a different landscape. First.

Second, because of the current economic conditions, they don’t have the budget constraints I did. Keep in mind, I had just passed a budget in which we raised taxes on the wealthy, cut taxes on the working poor, and were on track to reducing the deficit, and there was no – we couldn’t raise taxes again. So when I had an employer-mandate, that in effect, guaranteed that the health insurance companies would be joined by the small business community – at least the organized small business community – which made it harder to pass.

Thirdly, he does not have a Republican leader who’s running for president. Bill Kristol sent Bob Dole a letter saying, “I know you like health care and I know you want to compromise with Bill Clinton” — which he told me he would do – “but if you let him pass anything, Democrats will be a majority for a generation. You’ve got to beat it off.” And then we just had an automatic filibuster for everything. So you don’t have any of that; all that stuff’s gone.

And finally – and most important of all – everything is worse now. The difference – the spread – in our spending and other people’s spending in ‘93, ‘94, was 14 percent of GDP on health care for us, 10 percent for our next highest competitor, Canada. Now the spread is 16 ½ to 11. That’s $800 billion a year that we’re just throwing away because we’re not getting – Nobody else insures less than 100 percent. We’ve got what, 45 million people uninsured?

SPEAKER: 50.

CLINTON: get worse health outcomes. So it’s all worse. [...]

Even the health insurance companies say they’ve got to try to [pass it], number one. Number two, the small business community is not a guaranteed opposition. Number three, the American Medical Association says they’re against a public plan, but that’s because they think they get underpaid for Medicare and Medicaid. We’ll come back to that. And number four, we’ve got a more modern, more supportive Congress. So I think all that argues that we could get u50. Whatever it is. Huge number. And we don’t get better health outcomes; we niversal coverage. But the problem is, they’ve got to change the delivery system enough to get costs down so that we’ll still have universal coverage five years from now.

Keep in mind we have to examine this health care thing in light of all – And let me just say, I strongly supported the President’s stimulus program and the general outlines of what they’re trying to do on housing, and financing, and automobiles, and everything else. But because President Bush – because of the recession and because President Bush passed all those tax cuts for upper-income people like me, which I opposed – we had to borrow the money to do all this. And that’s why you see – I don’t know if you’ve been watching this, but the interest rates are creeping back up now, and people may be more reluctant to buy our debt, so that’s why President Obama went to Green Bay, WI, which has a good health care delivery system and is getting better results at lower costs to do it. [...]

The other thing that people keep talking about is how complicated my bill was. You know, there’s a reason President Obama hasn’t presented a bill here. The fact is, my bill replaced hundreds of more pages of federal law than it added. It was a net simplification of the current system. The current system looks like Rube Goldberg on steroids. And so – But he’s not going to have to worry about – I think we’re going to get past the filibuster, and I think they’ll be tough enough to go to 51 votes. But they would prefer, for his long-term relationships with Congress, it would be better if we could get the 60 votes. So what I think they’ll do is go for the 60, but if it seems that people are just dug in taking positions that don’t make any sense, then I think they’ll go back to plan B. That would be my preference, because he’s got to think about what it’s going to be like next year, and the year after, and the year after, and all of that.

CHART: Wouldn’t it be nice to win one of these once in awhile?

CLINTON: What?

CHART: Wouldn’t it be nice to just win, instead of thinking about the 60 votes and the relationships?

CLINTON: No, no. I think he will win. If he can’t get a good bill, I wouldn’t give away the store on that. If he can’t get a bill that’s genuine universal coverage, that genuinely is going to cut costs and make health insurers give up some of these unbelievable administrative burdens that they’ve put on people, and that really gets to the guts of the delivery system and does more primary preventive care and actually measures things that work, then I would go for the 51. But I would spend a little time trying to get to 60.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Expert Advice On Dealing With A Prior Administration's Use of Torture

By John Dean

From The Archives:

By JOHN W. DEAN

Friday, June 12, 2009

No official announcement has been made that the Obama Administration is not going to prosecute anyone – other than a few low-level soldiers who photographed themselves and already have been prosecuted – for torturing detainees in our so-called war on terror. But it has become clear that President Obama's announced desire to look forward, not backward, embodies such a decision.

Still, we must all hope that the Obama Administration makes more than a non-decision type of decision, and does not merely resolve the matter by silence and inaction. There are, in fact, precedents, and studies, that illuminate the grave problems confronting a democracy in making a choice when faced with the options of prosecuting and punishing versus forgiving and forgetting. I discovered this material some years ago when studying authoritarian governance.

The Insights of Samuel P. Huntington

I provided evidence in my recent book Conservatives Without Conscience that the Bush/Cheney presidency was the most authoritarian in American history. When doing research for that book, I read a work by the late Samuel P. Huntington, the highly- regarded Harvard political scientist and former president of the American Political Science Association. More specifically, I was interested in Professor Huntington's survey of the transition to democracy, during the mid-1970s through the 1980s, of some thirty countries that had previously been under authoritarian rule, which Huntington wrote about in The Third Wave: Democratization In the Late Twentieth Century.

Professor Huntington, who once served as a foreign policy adviser to Democratic presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey, was respected across the political spectrum, as conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg noted on his passing. Huntington called it as he saw it, and few have studied more governments so closely throughout the world.

When writing The Third Wave, Huntington explained that rather than following his normal practice of detached political analysis, he would explain the implications of his findings at five points in the book, where he "abandoned the roles of social scientist, [and] assumed that of [a] political consultant." It was in this context that Huntington addressed how a democratic government should deal with torture that had occurred under the rule of an authoritarian predecessor.

Applying Huntington's Insights to the Obama Administration's Predicament

While the situations are far from directly parallel, Huntington's analysis strikes me as relevant to our current situation. Thus, in the following paragraphs, I have paraphrased or quoted his work, and occasionally transposed it from the context of a purely authoritarian government to that of the authoritarian-leaning democracy favored by many conservatives, and encouraged by Bush/Cheney, and to the situation now faced by the United States and by the Obama Administration.

In turning to Huntington's analysis, I am not, of course, equating the American conservative authoritarianism with the authoritarianism the professor examined under the Central American and Asian dictatorships, or the Greek military, and similar authoritarian regimes. Nor is the situation parallel when American voters rejected the policies of the Republican Party by electing President Obama.

By the same token, no one should be surprised that torture occurred when American conservatives ruled in an authoritarian manner. Nor, given the fact that Obama campaigned by opposing such authoritarian actions, it should not be surprising that many of his supporters, who voted the authoritarians out of power in Washington, now want him to prosecute and punish those involved.

I found Huntington's work both provocative and illuminating in the context of the current situation that Obama faces in dealing with the use of torture by his predecessor. Especially given the fact we have never faced this situation before in the United States, but similar situations have existed in many other nations, the professor's advice is instructive.

The Case for Prosecuting and Punishing the Use of Torture

Based on Huntington's analysis, which is applicable to our country as well as to a newly-established democracy, there are a number of arguments for holding a prior administration accountable for torture through prosecutions and punishments:

(1) "Truth and justice require it." The Obama Administration "has the moral duty to punish vicious crimes against humanity.

(2) "Prosecution is a moral obligation owed to the victims and their families."

(3) "Democracy is based on law, and the point must be made that neither high officials nor [the] military … are above the law." Citing a judge who was critical of a government amnesty proposal, Huntington added: "Democracy isn't just freedom of opinion, the right to hold elections, and so forth. It's the rule of law. Without equal application of the law, democracy is dead. The government is acting like a husband whose wife is cheating on him. He knows it, everybody knows it, but he goes on insisting that everything is fine and praying every day that he isn't going to be forced to confront the truth, because then he'd have to do something about it."

(4) "Prosecution is necessary to deter further violations of human rights by [future] officials."

(5) "Prosecution is essential to establish the viability of the democratic system." If the Republicans and Bush/Cheney apologists can prevent prosecution though political influence, democracy does not really exist.

(6) Even if the worst "crimes are not prosecuted, at a very minimum it is necessary to bring into the open the extent of the crimes and the identity of those responsible and thus establish a full and unchallengeable public record. The principle of accountability is essential to democracy, and accountability requires 'exposing the truth' and insisting 'that people not be scarified for the greater good…'."

The Case for Forgiving and Forgetting the Use of Torture

Huntington's analysis of the case for leaving a past government's torture in the past, and imposing no consequences, which is based on more extreme government authoritarianism, is not nearly as applicable as his arguments calling for prosecution. Thus, I have taken his core arguments against prosecuting and punishing, and restated them in a context that is more closely applicable to our country and the current situation:

(1) A working democracy calls for reconciliation between major factions in society, who set aside divisions of the past.

(2) There must be a tacit understanding in a democracy among those vying for power that there will be no retribution for past policies sincerely held by opponents. Democracies do not criminalize policy differences, and while the Obama Administration does not believe torture is an effective policy, and has rejected it, it understands that the Bush/Cheney Administration believed it necessary to protect Americans.

(3) Because many Democrats were aware of the use of torture by the Bush/Cheney Administration -- specifically, Congressional Democrats who were briefed on its use -- it would be unfair to prosecute Republicans but not Democrats.

(4) Torture was only used because it was sincerely believed it was necessary to deal with terrorism, and, whether wisely or unwisely, it was done to protect the United States.

(5) Many Americans share in the guilt of the use of torture by the Bush/Cheney Administration. Recent polls indicate that only 29 percent of Americans believe torture should never be used, and the rest have varying degrees of toleration for its use. Similarly, not even half of Americans polled want an investigation into this matter.

(6) Prosecuting and punishing those involved in the use of torture would provoke a bitter and divisive public debate, which would detract from the government's ability to deal with more pressing problems like the economy, healthcare, and America's dangerous budget deficits. It is more important to guarantee the human rights of people today and tomorrow, than to seek retroactive justice that could compromise the ability to deal with more immediate and difficult issues.

Professor Huntington's Advice

It is unfortunate that Samuel Huntington is no longer available to share his wisdom for addressing this situation facing the nation, and the Obama Administration. Clearly there are strengths and weaknesses in the arguments on both sides of this issue. Nonetheless, as I noted, Huntington did give his advice to those who were forming new democracies -- advice which he based on how the democracy was formed:

(1) When the transition to democracy occurred through a process of transformation ("when the elites in power took the lead in bringing about democracy"), or through what he called transplacement ("when democratization resulted largely from joint action by government and opposition groups"), then Huntington advised those in power, "do not attempt to prosecute authoritarian officials for human rights violations. The political costs of such an effort will outweigh any moral gains."

(2) If replacement – not transformation or transplacement -- occurred (that is if "opposition groups took the lead in bringing about democracy, and the authoritarian regime collapsed or was overthrown"), and if those in power felt it was "morally and politically desirable," then Huntington advised that they should "prosecute the leaders of the authoritarian regime promptly (within one year of your coming into power) while making clear that you will not prosecute middle- and lower-ranking officials."

(3) Regardless of how the transition occurred, Huntington advised that those in power ought to "[d]evise a means to achieve a full and dispassionate public accounting of how and why the crimes were committed."

(4) Throughout his analysis, Huntington points out, "on the issue of 'prosecute and punish vs. forgive and forget,'" that "each alternative presents grave problems, and that the least unsatisfactory course may well be: do not prosecute, do not punish, do not forgive, and, above all, do not forget."

Huntington's advice, notwithstanding how the transition occurred during our last election, still appears very relevant to our democracy, which is the most advanced in the world. Personally, I find his arguments for prosecution stronger than those against it when those arguments are applied to the Bush/Cheney Administration. But since it appears the Obama Administration is not going to take such action, at a minimum the Administration should follow Huntington's counsel to find "a means to achieve a full and dispassionate public accounting," and should make certain that the means chosen is not understood as forgiving, which would allow the nation to quickly forget.

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The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.